


Leika

by jl0281



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Asian Character(s), Curses, Dark Magic, Demons, Drama & Romance, Eastern Themes, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, Forbidden Love, Gods, Healing, Healthy Relationships, High Fantasy, Immortals, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Torture, Jealousy, Love Triangles, Love at First Sight, M/M, Magic, Obsession, Oriental Fantasy, Plague, Possessive Behavior, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rebirth, Rewrite, Sorcerers, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Spells & Enchantments, Spirits, Torture, Trauma, True Love, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, Xianxia, Zombies, danmei - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:47:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27809341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jl0281/pseuds/jl0281
Summary: When a deadly plague ravages the land of Puan, warrior general Eunso has no choice but to beg the aid of the infamous Lord Rohe--a sorcerer rumored to be as monstrous as he is powerful, and as powerful as the gods themselves. Eunso is ready to be killed for disturbing the sorcerer's peace, ready to bargain away his soul, ready to submit to anything, if only it will save the lives of his people. But what he is not ready for is what he finds: a man neither withered nor wicked, but beautiful and brittle. A man who is far more human than the tales let on.Everybody warned him he was walking into a curse. They did not know what they were talking about.Because the curse that looms over Leika is as old as time, and to break it, Eunso must prove, despite all odds, that there is still light and love in the sorcerer's icy life.****An m/m high fantasy romance. Refined and rewritten.
Comments: 24
Kudos: 20





	1. LEIKA

A DEMON LIVES in the eastern mistwood forest of Puan. 

‘Tis not a cruel epithet, young man, but true words from the survivors of his malice. I have seen their maddened eyes. I have heard their nightly screams. I have listened to the tales drip like blood from their mouths. 

They say such frightening things. That he shrouds himself in the night itself to mask his hideous nature. That his flesh is still stained crimson from the villages he has massacred, massacred with rains of poison and hells of fire. They say he is without remorse for his ugliness and his cruelty: that he traded the lives of a hundred children for a treasured pearl from the Sea Dragon, that he dried a thriving lake into the Black Desert to spite a single woman who would not have him. They say he is an immortal monster with five hearts, and not one of them beats with kindness or mercy.

You ask me if I have seen him—and no. Oh, no, I would never wish such a horror upon myself.

But as for you, young man?

You trespass on his domain, and you shall not return the same. 


	2. 1

_**Leika** _

* * *

His heart hardly beat these days, among the stasis of the mistwoods. 

Pit. Pat. Pit. Pat. Like the rhythm of the almost-dead. 

In hunting goldfeather, it was a small convenience: the elusive birds could pick up the breath of a predator ten paces away, and the one pecking at rockworms by the stream was no exception. Beautiful, impressive darlings of nature, they were. Better admired alive than roasted on a plate. But shame for this one that her liver melted like hot snow when cooked right, and Leika had a craving for it tonight. 

For that delicate flesh and those soft organs, he broke his hunting rules and silenced his footsteps with ether. He abstained from hunting with spellwork to retain some authenticity to the endeavor, but in truth, even authentic hunting dulled after forty years in the same woods, with the same game. Nowadays he preferred the cuisine to the chase. 

He aimed his arrow and drew back the bowstring. He pressed a quiet tongue to his parted lips, savoring the promise of a fine poultry meal, savoring the faint burn in his fingers from the pressure of the draw. Small reminders that he was still alive. 

Paces away, the poor goldfeather fed obliviously on the worms. She could not hear the motions obscured by magic, nor could she sense bloodlust that did not exist. She would be dead before she knew what happened. Or so, on any other day, it would have went.

His grip on the arrow was just beginning to loosen when the interruption came.

Trespassers.

The stutter arose in the corner of his mind, a stir of his warding spells. Surprised, he let loose the arrow. It steered off its intended path and sent its target into a frightened flutter.

Reacting quickly, he flicked his fingers. Ether curled around the arrow just before it split against the rock. Ether twisted the arrow in the air, chasing and then spearing the bird’s golden breast, then dragging the catch back to the hunter. The effort was barely conscious; mostly, he was getting over his surprise. Wondering who dared cross the deterrence barriers he’d set into the outer perimeter of the mistwoods. Surely, they knew he lived here? It couldn’t be a foolish child again. It had best not be.

He opened his satchel with a sigh. The goldfeather, dead, landed cleanly inside. He pulled out the arrow and whistled once, sending critters and birds scattering. 

Seconds later, a massive black lioness emerged from the thicket. Dissipating blood coated her muzzle. A pair of unearthly emerald eyes peered curiously. She did not need to speak for Leika to understand the question.

“Guests,” he said simply.

The lioness cocked her head and made a noise of amusement. 

“Mm. Yes. Me too.” 

She swiped her tongue over the blood on her muzzle.

Leika chuckled and lifted his body over her back. She did not need instruction; as soon as he was settled, she started through the trees, leaping, dodging, winding at a sprint. He ducked under some branches, dismissed others with a touchless sweep of his hands. Soon, they broke into a small clearing and arrived in view of a traditional manor, one with wooden columns and a flourished, pointed roof. It was the only building in these mistwoods. The only human habitat. 

Well, most people would dispute whether it was a _human_ habitat.

Over by the leftside clearing, a woman was tending to the garden by the koi pond. Her hair glimmered with auburn under the midday sun, and she had been under the autumn heat since Leika left the manor hours ago, but not a drop of sweat dotted her golden skin. At Leika’s approach, the woman straightened, dusted her hands clean, and stepped around the pond with a soft smile. 

“You’re back early,” said the woman.

Leika swung off the lioness. She pranced toward the woman, and as she did, morphed into a doe-eyed boy who appeared to be in his early teens. The boy tucked his golden hands into his breeches and he skipped the rest of the way to the woman. Arriving at her side, he grinned and said, “We’ve new _toys_.” 

The woman arched a sleek eyebrow. “Oh? Visitors?”

“Curiously so,” said Leika. He sent out his cognizance, spreading his conscious mind through the radius of the forest. He could sense a group of approaching humans, unfamiliar presences, but radiating purpose. They were about a half hour away at their current pace, unless they lost themselves among the forest. Not likely if they’d made it this far. “Miro, love, I’ll have to ask you to tame your excitement. I’ve a feeling it’s military, so we’ll entertain them for _one_ civil night if they insist on staying.” 

“And after the one?” said the boy. 

“We’ll see. Sunbe, my dinner. I’ll have the organs tonight, but preserve the meat, please.”

The woman caught the satchel with the goldfeather and inclined her head. Leika made for his chambers. 

His room was located in the west wing of the second floor of the manor, a manor designed to house a lord’s family and a full entourage of servants and guards. He did not frequent a good half of the rooms, but he liked to know that they existed. He liked the artistry of the decor, the jade statuettes and calligraphy portraits, the landscape watercolor and chiseled plants, because he favored pretty things. He liked that the architecture and the embellishment changed periodically, at the etheral designs of Sunbe and Miroka. It made his little world of a hundred thousand acres feel ever so slightly bigger. 

The only place that remained permanently constant was his own room. He kept earthen tones here. A zither he did not know how to play, and had little interesting in learning. A taste in the air of the mountains. Inside his room, a spelled screen door opened to a private bathroom on the first floor of the manor, in the west wing. Here he slipped into the stone pool and washed off the grime off the forest, slipping his weight beneath the warm water, wondering again on the trespassers. 

How long had it been since he’d last had visitors?

Eight years?

Nine?

And that was only because the foolish girl had gotten lost on a dare.

They’d come less frequently as the tales traveled. The forest, after all, was spelled with illusory horrors to daunt anyone who dared disturb his peace. The deeper one went, the stronger the ether. He did not want to see those fickle, ugly human faces. But it had been so long, and he was...curious.

He flared out his conscious again. They were closer, their auras crisper. He could taste the apprehension, the exhaustion, the—conviction. He lingered on it a little before withdrawing into himself. 

Some moments later, he slipped on a robe and went to peer over the balcony. The ether wards on the manor meant he could not be seen, but he had a clear view of the incoming crowd. One short a dozen men, all atop horses and followed by two mules hauling supply carts. Most wearing the same breeches and robes and boots. Swords hitched to their sides. Stubbles on their haggard faces. Soldiers. 

They looked frightened, like whisper from him could wet their pants. The trials of the forest had certainly run them ragged. Except for the one at the forefront. That fellow looked tense, but quite unwavering. Firm eyes and a tight jaw, though blood streaked his forehead from a recent cut. No doubt the lot had only made it this far because that man ordered it.

But Leika was more interested in the soldier in the middle of the entourage. He was wounded, armor bloodstained, strapped to his horse which was led by another man. The injury appeared to be quite severe, not from his illusory forest horrors. It seemed that these men had faced more trials than Leika’s spellwork to reach this place. 

“Sunbe,” he called.

The air distorted. A woman’s figure materialized. She smiled and bowed her head. 

“How may I serve?”

Leika glanced down at the visitors, who were now dismounting a few paces away from the manor. Confused eyes peered at what was in front of them. A stocky man pointed forward and stammered something to his leader. Nobody seemed to understand what was going on. That did give him some small pleasure. 

“It looks like Akugal’s sent a negotiation party. I’d rather not deal with irritable idiots, so would you please see them cleaned and fed?”

“As you wish.” 

With another bow, Sunbe disappeared in a black mist. Leika watched his unwelcome guests start forward. His skin prickled at the thought of so many men in his abode. He thought, so that he was not the irritable idiot instead, he ought to eat the bird he caught before he showed his face.


	3. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos!

_**Eunso** _

* * *

They said a beast laid in the center of the eastern midwoods, but all that Eunso saw was a shrine. 

Two weeks, his men had fought through the feral horrors of the plague to reach this place. Three hours, they had rode through the curses of the forest—writhing shadows and living trees, foxes that vanished and vipers that cackled. Just as the sun passed the midway point, they arrived in the clearing where the master of the woods was rumored to live. But there was no hint of habitation. No whisper. No home.

Just a lonely wooden shrine.

Tattered talismans hung in a draped line from the roof. Moss crawled along the posts. A cracked white porcelain mask with an eerie smile peered down from the pediment. Some ways to the left of the shrine, a neglected, lifeless pond sat without the stir of even insects. 

Nobody sane could live four decades in this place. Nobody human. 

Behind Eunso, his men, or what was left of them, stumbled their horses to a pause. Frightened whispers began. He could _feel_ their nerves on his skin, more sharply than he felt the sun, the breeze. He could almost hear the ragged heartbeat of the nearest man, who pulled up close to his mare and spoke insistently. 

“I know what you’re thinking, Eunso. And I’ll tell you right now—it’s a bad idea. It’s a damn bad idea.” 

Eunso turned to the soldier and lifted an eyebrow. The gesture was far more composed than he felt. He wanted to agree and turn tail. Take up the offer from the sweet women in the outskirt village. Spend a nice, warm night with pretty company, drink some wine, eat a proper final supper—and then come back to face his fate. 

But they had no time. 

“You can always stay out here and keep the horses company,” he said.

The man he spoke to was named Jaelim. Jaelim was a plump, baby-faced fellow who tried to look his age by growing out a short beard. He failed spectacularly. At thirty-two, one year Eunso’s senior, he could pass for twenty-two. At thirty-two, his backbone had all the fortitude of a decrepit man at ninety-two. 

He clearly wanted to do as Eunso said. But he had enough honor in him to put up a fight. 

He pursed his lips and pointed toward the shrine.

“ _That_ is a deathtrap. A right _tomb_. You hear the birds? The insects? Nothing. You go in there, and you’re not coming back out.” 

“We stay out here, we tell Lord Rohe we’re proper cowards. He won’t deal with us.” 

“Well, good.” 

“Jae.”

“ _Eunso_.” 

Eunso frowned. He glanced down at Jaelim’s hands, which were white from their grip on the horse reins. The man was more frightened than he let on, and he was letting on quite a bit. 

The whispers at his back had grown silent. He felt nine pairs of eyes on him, awaiting orders. He turned and looked at his men. Somber faces. Tired faces. A few maddened, red-rimmed eyes and tear-stained cheeks from their harrowing trek through the woods. Some had pissed their pants; he could smell it. Others were simply resigned to die: having come this far, they could not return to the safety of the capital without powerful sorcery. They’d already lost nine men to the plague, and one was well on his way to dying. They needed the magic of the master of the woods. 

But sorcerer here had a legend to his name. Every soul in Puan knew it. The tale went that, possessing immeasurable power and inexplicable magic, the Lord Rohe had made a contract with the martialist Akugal, now the Provincial Highlord of Puan. In exchange for ending a power struggle and elevating the martialist to a highlord, Akugal granted the Lord Rohe a hundred thousand acres of land and a promise of undisturbed peace. That was forty-two years ago, well before Eunso’s time. And in forty-two years, the stories had grown horrific. 

The wildest of them said that the Lord was neither man nor sorcerer, but a dragon: some clawed, winged beast, who breathed not fire but death itself. The tamer tales attributed his very existence to forbidden dark magic. Power granted from pacts with devils. Or perhaps he was a devil himself, a hooded spirit with black, shriveled skin and yellow slit eyes. The most frightening tales though—because they held the most possibility of truth—were about his past. Why he desired this safe haven. Why he lived in utter solitude. 

They said he had committed atrocities not even monsters could face. 

Eunso was not fool enough to believe everything he was told. But tales like these were inevitably grounded in some degree of truth. Their lives were at the sorcerer’s fingertips. And that shrine, with the eerie mask upon the pediment, might as well be saying that dare they enter, they would be walking into his palm. 

Eunso breathed. 

This was do or die. No other choice. 

He swung off his horse and addressed his men. 

“Sabune, you’ll take point out here until I return. Tashina, Muyen, with me.” 

The soldiers Tashina and Muyen followed suit, no complaint. They were resolved to die, the kind of conviction he needed to brave whatever waited within the shrine. He gave no order to Jaelim, merely eyed the man as he passed. Jaelim stared at him with an open mouth and a stuttering sound in his throat. No words came though, and before Eunso was halfway to the shrine, the plump fellow cursed and leapt off his horse, trotting to Eunso’s side. 

“I hate you,” said Jaelim. 

Eunso smiled and clapped his back. 

He was the first to set foot on the shrine stairs. The wood creaked beneath his weight. Wind stirred, sweeping dead leaves from the entrance. As he approached the closed doors, his men reached to unsheathe their weapons. He put out his hand, halting them. Their blades would be no use against a sorcerer of this caliber, and he did not want to show any hostility. 

He placed his hand on the door. It parted easily, hinges groaning. A winterous air breezed out. Crisp, clean, and tasting of mountainous evergreens. 

The scent faded as quickly as it came. 

He entered the shrine. A stone statue of a six-armed goddess sat cross-legged at the center, one pair of hands clasped in prayer. At her feet was a table of offerings—or there ought be offerings, except the wooden plates were empty. Three candles sat between the plates, casting looming shadows in the otherwise empty space. 

The door hinges groaned again. Light dimmed. Jaelim squeaked. Eunso looked over his shoulder to see that the door had closed. But that was only natural—the door had been weighted, and without a hand to hold it open, had fallen back to its proper place. 

Eunso faced the goddess statue again. Was this some sort of test? Or, perhaps, would they find the door locked when they attempted to open it? Or was this shrine just a simple shrine, abandoned? But then, where were the birds, the insects? Why was the floor so clean, the corners bereft of cobwebs? Why did he _feel_ that his men were not his only company?

Call it soldier’s instinct. They were being watched. 

“Lord Rohe,” he said for the room. “Forgive our intrusion. I am Sen Eunso, Second General of Puan, in service of Lord Akugal. I’ve come to seek an audience with your lordship.” 

Silence. 

He shared a glance at Jaelim, who was pale as a ghost. 

“My lord. Behind the statue.”

That was Tashina. Eunso circled the statue to where the soldier was standing. Tashina pulled at gray, sheer curtains that had covered what should have been wall. Instead, the fabric revealed a dark stairwell going up. As Eunso neared the stairwell entrance, dim lights appeared from within. Tashina hissed and jerked back. Eunso caught the curtain before it closed. 

He peered up the wellway. A dozen steps up, two candled lamps on the side walls had come to life. They illuminated the steps only so far. 

It was magic. He had seen magic in the court before, from the lord’s enchanters, but not this level of illusion magic. From the clearing outside, the shrine appeared far too small to home these stairs. So where did they lead?

“Eunso—”

He faced his men and grinned. “It seems we’ve been invited.” 

Jaelim whimpered. Eunso proceeded up the stairs, the others at his tail. 

Once he reached the twelfth step, another pair of candled lights came alive further along the path. Jaelim jolted and collided into his back. A boy’s distant giggle echoed through the wellway.

“Fuck! What was that!” 

“Give me your hand.” 

Jaelim stuck out his hand. Eunso wrapped his around it. 

“Better?”

It seemed to take the former a moment to realize that Eunso had asked for his hand simply to hold it. Jaelim pulled back, turning red under the dim lights. Despite the chilling atmosphere, Muyen pursed his lips in a suppressed grin. 

“What was that for?” Jaelim muttered.

“Ease yourself,” said Eunso, turning forward again. “We’ve got no way to go but up.” 

They went up. 

A few minutes later, the candle light faded, overshadowed by a brighter source—an opening at the top of the wellway. Soon the four men emerged into a sunlit, wood-walled room. A landscape painting of a forest lake sprawled the left wall. Windows on the right side overlooked the mistwood forest. They were above ground level, but perhaps only one floor above ground level. 

Jaelim gasped. “The stairs!” 

The wellway was gone. In its place were smooth wooden floorboards. 

“Impressed?” 

Eunso turned toward the source of that unfamiliar voice. Tashina and Muyen did too, instantly drawing their weapons. Their eyes landed on a boy sitting on the windowsill. A boy who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. 

The boy looked human, but for his emerald eyes. Dressed in fine, loose silks, and bearing refined aristocratic features, he could pass for a young lord. 

That could not be Lord Rohe, could it?

Before Eunso spoke, the boy hopped off the sill with the grace of a cat. He said, “ _I_ am impressed. It’s been some time since I’ve met a human with dry pants. Three of them!” 

The boy giggled and eyed Tashina in particular, whose weapon glinted in the sunlight. 

“Put away your blades,” said Eunso. 

The soldiers complied hesitantly. The boy watched with a cocked head, which suddenly turned toward the back of the room. Eunso followed his gaze, hearing the footsteps a moment later. A woman emerged from the adjacent hall.

She appeared to be a young woman, perhaps mid-twenties, tall, slender, with a chiseled oval face and cropped dark hair. Simple beige silk adorned her figure. Jade teardrops swung from her ears. Unlike the boy, she held herself with propriety: a pair of golden hands folded beneath her bosom, one finger sporting a carved wooden ring. She came to a stop five paces away and inclined her head. 

“Forgive our delayed greeting, gentlemen. We’ve only just finished preparing your comforts.”

She made the extended stairwell sound far more generous than a scare. 

“It’s no trouble,” said Eunso, keeping his wits together. “You are…?”

“You are speaking with Sunbe. And here, my brother, Miroka.”

The boy was peering at Yashina’s hilt ornament at a half-arm’s length. Yashina appeared deathly stiff. 

Eunso introduced himself and his entourage. “I presume this is the home of Lord Rohe? We come on the orders of Lord Akugal to seek an audience.”

“This is indeed the house of my lord. He will grant your audience once you’ve had his hospitality. We have prepared fresh baths and hot meals, and treatments for your wounded. If it pleases,” she turned to the boy, “Miroka will fetch the rest of your men and tend to your mounts.” 

Eunso did not trust this place, but more was at stake than toxic bath water. If this generosity was a game, then he would play. 

He nodded. “I appreciate it.” 

“It’s only our pleasure. Now, this way to the spring…”

They followed the woman named Sunbe through the umber halls of the manor. More paintings hung upon the walls, watercolor images of natural scenery. Here and there, a statuette of a lion, a wolf. Once, a hanging tapestry of a mystical bird. Not a single piece featured humans and their villages. 

Soon they descended the stairs to a private bathyard. The sun gazed down on a hot spring pool, veiled by tall trees. Clothes, simple but lush blue robes, piled atop a stone bench. Soaps and towels laid upon a wooden platter. On a separate platter were pots of herbal medicines and a roll of gauze. Sunbe excused herself to allow the men their privacy, but even after she was gone, the soldiers dared not move until Eunso began to strip. In silence, they stepped into the water.

Jaelim was the last, still dressed, still clutching his sword.

“Not getting in?” said Eunso.

Jaelim’s eyes darted around. He spoke in a whisper. “ _Someone_ needs to keep lookout. If the pool is spelled, and you knock out…”

“There are easier ways to kill us,” said Eunso. He picked up a bar of soap and turned it in his hand. A dragon’s head was engraved. He swept his thumb over the dragon’s wings. “In any case, I doubt he’s doing this just for our comfort.”

“What do you mean?”

“He won’t deal with us until we’re clean.” 

Muyen muttered under his breath.

“What was that?” said Jaelim.

“I said, mud and piss don’t taste good.” 

Jaelim paled. Eunso chuckled. He pushed to the edge of the pool and grasped Jaelim’s ankles. With a stumble and a yelp, the soldier fell into the water. In the corner of Eunso’s eye, a pair of birds fluttered away from the trees. 

Soon the rest of the soldiers appeared, quaking and pale. The gravely injured one was not among them: taken by the woman, they said, for ‘treatment’. In that man’s state, his only chance of rescue was magic. So rather than worry, Eunso dared to hope. 

He urged the rest of his men into the bath. A half-hour later, cleaned and dressed, Sunbe appeared once more to lead them to a windowless dining room. A rich display of spiced meats and forest fruits laid across a long wooden table. Padded cushions lined the sides.

Though they had not eaten since the early morning, three men refused to touch the food. Jaelim nibbled at a rabbit flank. Eunso felt no hunger, but had a meal’s share regardless. Impatience gnawed at his bones. But the minutes bled into the hour, and after the food had long gone cold, still no one came to grant him audience. 

He had waited longer in the highlord’s court. And yet, this felt like the longest wait of his life. 

At the second hour, he could sit no longer. He ordered his men to stay, and alone went to look for the woman, the boy, or the Lord Rohe himself. 

The halls wound. But not matter which way he went or which door he opened, he always ended back at the dining room. Had they been imprisoned here? Did the sorcerer not intend to meet with them at all? Men had vanished in the eastern mistwoods, supposedly, but most who ventured into the forest returned to tell the tale. For all the horrors whispered about the Lord Rohe, he seemed to prefer deterrence over death. 

Or was that only true for those who did not intrude this far? 

No. 

They’d been bathed and fed. At the very least, they wouldn’t be left to rot. He should expect to see the Lord Rohe, one way or another. But it seemed only on the sorcerer’s terms.

Eunso returned to the dining room. He did not tell the others that the hallways had sealed them here. Muyen, perhaps sensing the tension, pulled out a pack of cards from his pocket and cleared a block of the table. They passed some time. 

It must have been another three, four hours before Sunbe reappeared. She smiled like she had only kept them waiting for minutes. She said upon the sudden silence, “Lord Rohe will see you now, General Sen. Your men may wait here.” 

Yashina made to stand. Eunso caught the soldier’s arm below the table and nodded. He followed the woman out. 

The halls had changed. They passed a tea room, a courtyard; they ascended to the second floor, and there took a long walk to the far side of the manor. Open windows welcomed the night breeze. The moon was strong outside. The mistwood forest, asleep. 

At last his guide paused before a set of translucent screen doors. Though the screens obscured the details of the room within, Eunso could make out the flickers of lamplight. The silhouette shadow. A figure seated on the ground, before a table. The sound of a turned page rustled through the divide. 

Of course. In a place like this, what would a man have to do but sleep, eat, and read? 

He tried to tame his apprehension as Sunbe rapped against the wooden frame.

“My lord, your guest.”

A pause. The sound of a book closing. 

“Let him in.” 

Smooth as alabaster, chilling as ice. 

Sunbe slid apart the screen door. She moved back, making way for Eunso to enter. 

He stepped into the entryway. He braced himself. 

His eyes fell first to the matted floor. Trailed the casted shadow to its owner, to the resting folds of deep blue silk. Faint embroidered patterns of clouds and cranes adorned the cloth, stark in contrast where the fabric revealed the snowy skin of a slender arm. A scarless hand. Nails as smooth as a noblewoman’s. Fingers just as fine. 

Eunso could have stopped there and had his share of surprise. But inevitably, he did not. 

He lifted his gaze to the sorcerer’s eyes. And indeed, as some tales went, they were inhumanly yellow. But the rest—

The rest was worse. 

The features were there. The curved eyes and their sharp eyebrows, the tall nose and soft lips, the high bones and chiseled jaw. But the features were not all. Some density of air. Some soul deep impression. Beginning with the eyes, which on second thought, could not be called yellow. Golden, perhaps. Beginning with his eyes, there was something Eunso could only describe as beauty—beauty like nothing he had ever met, something physical and far beyond—beauty so great on a face that purported to be human, that it was the stuff of nightmares.

Could it be—magic? 

The screen door slid shut behind him, enclosing him in what appeared to be a bookroom. The sorcerer arched an eyebrow, as if waiting. Eunso remembered propriety and knelt. He lowered his head and prepared to speak, but the sorcerer was faster.

With a faint, indistinguishable accent, “So Akugal sends his foolish soldiers to disturb my promised peace. Has he gone mad with age, or have your lot offended his tastes?” 

“Neither, my lord,” said Eunso. “We’ve come to beg your aid in a matter of magic. Lord Akugal has called a council of sorcerers and requests your presence at the provincial court, urgently. A dark curse beyond the understanding of our court mages plagues the land—”

“That’s hardly surprising. Your mages are not very competent.”

Eunso tensed his jaw. “Not beside your reputation, no. But this curse sickens men into a fever until they lose their minds, and then they become feral beasts that cannot die. We’ve lost hundreds of thousands already. More than that. Whole regions are under quarantine, and it’s been but a month. If you would lend us your power, my lord will give you—”

“A hundred thousand acres of land and undisturbed peace? Forgive me if I have little faith in his promises these days.” 

“People are dying by the thousands—!”

“And you believe I care?” 

Eunso fell quiet. He’d lifted his gaze, and now those golden eyes bore into him. 

The Lord Rohe propped an elbow on his table and rested his chin upon his palm. “You must have heard the tales. So tell me, General. Do you really believe I care if the men of Puan get what they deserve?”

A heartbeat passed in silence. 

“What they deserve?” whispered Eunso. 

Images of the past weeks flashed through his memory. The stripped, harrowed faces of the dancers he’d laughed with at the autumn festival. The mother who cradled her child as he tore his teeth through her bosom. The blackened ash of his hometown. 

He pushed off his knees. He approached the table. The sorcerer’s eyes widened. His silken hair stirred from the impact as Eunso slammed his fists into the wood.

“Hundreds of thousands,” hissed Eunso. “You’ve not seen them torn apart by the people they love. Stripped, not only of their lives, but of their humanity. _Screaming_ until their throats bleed, begging to just die. Brothers. Sisters. Innocent people. Mothers who have held their dead babes. _Children_.” 

The sorcerer held his gaze. Then smiled. 

“Ah. You _do_ believe I care. What a poor—” 

It was the expression. The languid voice. The screams of his dying men echoed in his head, and without thinking, he snaked his hand forward for the sorcerer’s robes. Before he could touch, an invisible force shoved him back, slammed him against the nearby shelves. Scrolls and books fell over his body. He leapt to his feet just as the sorcerer, now standing, lifted a hand.

Incoming spellwork. Eunso dodged out of the way. Behind him, the bookshelf combusted. 

That could have killed him. That was _meant_ to kill him. 

Gods, he was going to die. 

The sorcerer moved his hand once more, a beckoning gesture of the fingers. Eunso felt his hipside sword unsheathe. He caught the hilt before the weapon was full out of the scabbard, felt the pressure of the sorcerer’s magic resisting his grip. If he was going to die tonight, it would not be by his own blade. He grit his teeth and fought the sorcerer’s intense pull, their eyes locked all the while. 

The force of magic was too strong. Just before his muscles gave in, Eunso reversed and freed the blade. Riding on the momentum of the pull, he charged at the sorcerer. The sorcerer switched his spellwork to the table, which came between them as a shield. Eunso cut through it clean and maintained his onslaught.

He fought because fighting was what he did best. Because if he was going to die, he wanted to do it with the familiar adrenaline of combat. He knew he could not best a sorcerer, no matter how skilled a warrior he was. But for now, the Lord Rohe did not meet him with offensive spellwork. 

No. The sorcerer only dodged his swings, summoned pointless objects to parry his blows. Sometimes sent a book or a shattered wood piece his way, but else made no effort to crush him. Toying, perhaps.

Eunso quickened his pace, three decades of the sword dance flowing through his blood. Metal hissed as his blade sliced through pressurized air. The sorcerer’s breath quickened. A lock of his long hair severed from a clean cut. A teapot hurtled toward Eunso’s face, and he slammed the flat of his blade against it at a calculated angle. The teapot shattered, an explosion of shards and hot liquid.

Eunso dodged the worst of it. The sorcerer, taken by surprise, lifted his hand to shield his face. The shards slowed midair, but the liquid splattered his sleeve. Eunso lunged at the opening and struck at full force.

The sorcerer grunted. Crimson sprayed. 

Eunso relished a brief, instinctive moment of triumph, shifted for the killing blow—and then froze. 

The Lord Rohe knelt before him, having fallen from the strike. He clutched his stomach, where Eunso’s blade had torn a gaping wound. Blood soaked his robes. Blood soaked the mat. The sorcerer of dark legend. The only one who could save them from this nightmare. 

What was Eunso doing?

Dread, pain, guilt cooled Eunso’s adrenaline. All that kept his sword arm steady was his own fear of death. No chance the Lord Rohe would spare him now, but he could not strike. Because as long as the sorcerer lived, there was the chance that someone might yet save Puan. 

The sorcerer pushed upright. Eunso stepped back and began to lower his weapon. “I—” 

The sorcerer grabbed his sword by the blade. More blood dripped down the metal, this time from the sorcerer’s palm. His eyes, unreadable, locked with Eunso’s as he stepped closer. He stopped a half-arm away from Eunso. Pulled the blade up to his own throat. Pressed it until he broke the skin. 

Eunso locked his grip on the hilt, horrified. 

“What are you—” 

“You want me to save your people, don’t you?” the sorcerer said. His voice was not the smooth, cold alabaster it had been. Exertion from their fight jagged its edges. “Then end this.” 

“I—I don’t understand.” 

The sorcerer took another step closer. The blade slid along his throat. Blood seeped. 

“End my life, and I swear on my soul, I will do anything you ask.” 

The sorcerer looked calm, as calm as the moment of their meeting. As monstrously, grievously beautiful. He looked like he might be toying still. Like there ought to be a smile in the corner of his lips. 

And yet, Eunso’s heart twisted. 

Who would ask, even in jest, such a thing as this? 

Not a mocking _kill me_ , kill me if you can, if you dare, but _end my life._

“I can’t do that,” he said softly. “At least not yet.” 

The sorcerer did not respond.

Eunso pulled away his sword. He glanced down at the sorcerer’s stomach and saw that the wound had already closed. Relieved, he sheathed his sword and took two steps back. He fell to his palms, knees. He pressed his head to the floor at the sorcerer’s feet. 

“I don’t ask you to forgive my hostility, Lord Rohe. But I beg your kindness. I don’t know what the people of Puan have done to earn your spite, and maybe it is well deserved. But there are good, innocent people dying as we speak, and you may be the only man in Puan who can save them. So please. Help us. And Puan will promise you— _I_ will promise you whatever is within my power to give.” 

Quiet. 

Footsteps. The sorcerer walked toward the window. 

“There is a stag in these woods as white as snow,” the sorcerer said at last. “He does not permit himself to be touched by men like me, but perhaps he will make an exception for you. Bring me his golden eyes, and I will _consider_ your request.”

Eunso stood upright. His heart hammered. He glanced out the window, toward the mistwoods. It had been some time since he had hunted by moonlight, but he could manage it.

“Not tonight,” said the sorcerer. He faced Eunso. “Tonight you will rest. You may search for him tomorrow.” 

“I appreciate the concern, but I would rather—”

“It isn’t concern. It’s an order. Well, you don’t have to obey. But the manor won’t be letting you leave until sunrise.” 

Eunso didn’t know what to say. The sorcerer stirred his fingers, and a book that had been torn apart during their fight—the book he had been reading—fixed itself together again. With an untelling smile, the sorcerer tucked the book into his robes and made for the exit. 

“Good night, General. May your dreams be undisturbed.”


	4. 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos <3

**_Eunso_ **

* * *

As promised, the manor imprisoned its visitors until sunrise.

At sunrise, the corridors unwound from their infinite loops. With eight of his men, Eunso ventured into the forest to seek the white stag. Possibly, this was just a fool’s errand, humiliation to punish his hostility in the bookroom. Possibly the white stag did not exist.

But when a man was desperate, he clung to hope.

Last night, his wounded man had been returned to the group, injuries patched and life restored. It was the work of magic. Tashina was at the manor now, watching over their healing brother. Eunso thought that not even for a game would a man expend his energy to save another, if he only meant to kill them all. If that act was not an indicator of kindness, then at the very least it was an indicator of intent. So he gave this hunt his best effort.

He split his men into one group of three and three pairs. Jaelim stayed with him.

As they navigated the woods, it seemed that the spellwork which harrowed their journey here had been disabled. The forest was just a forest. The creatures as natural as any: sparrows and buntings and silver warblers, foxes and rabbits and deer. But no white stag. Hours passed without a sighting or a signal from the other men.

What had the sorcerer said?

_He does not permit himself to be touched by men like me, but perhaps he will make an exception for you._

A creature which could not be caught. A creature who gave permission. Created exception.

Past midday, Eunso reconvened with his men in the clearing. The lifeless shrine which had greeted them was gone now, illusion magic stripped, replaced by the manor and its lively garden. Their horses gnawed fearlessly on the grass, and to Eunso’s surprise, his own mare was chewing a leaf offered by the boy Miroka. Those of his men who had arrived ahead of him were clustered at the opposite side of the manor. The boy paid them no mind, except to say, once he saw Eunso, that lunch was getting cold.

They ate. Afterward, Eunso instructed his men to remain at the manor. He returned to the woods alone.

He kept his sword sheathed, his bow and arrows tucked. He wandered in no particular direction, simply deeper into the unexplored region behind the clearing. The life of the forest swallowed him. Birdsong and rustling leaves, hisses and chirps and calls, the distant trickle of a stream. With little else to do but think, he wondered about the master of the woods.

He had not expected courting the Lord Rohe’s aid to be easy. He had envisioned scenarios where he would describe the suffering of Puan’s people while the sorcerer gazed on calmly. But last night, he had let his emotions get the better of him.

Why?

Because they had been served with food? Because of that face?

No. Eunso knew better.

Because of the spite underlying the sorcerer’s words, perhaps. _What they deserve_. That vindictiveness, it came from somewhere human. Somewhere wronged. Wounded. And Eunso must have thought he could appeal to the better part of that humanity. Maybe he was a fool. But if this white stag did exist, maybe he had succeeded.

He gazed at his surroundings. Lush green, raw nature. Beautiful.

But forty years in these same woods?

Was it barrier? A cage? Or was it a tomb for the still-living?

His footsteps slowed unconsciously. He lifted his sword hand and stared at his fingers. He could still feel the hilt straining against his grip as the sorcerer pushed the blade against his own neck.

The branches stirred in his peripheral.

Eunso lifted his gaze. His breath stopped.

There, peering at him from between the trees, was a magnificent stag as white as snow.

His heart hammered. Hope.

He took a step forward. But as soon as he did, the stag bound away, quick as the wind. Eunso cursed and chased after it, but within seconds, not a hint of its trail was left.

He searched until sunset. He would have searched through the night, but he ran into the woman Sunbe, who insisted that he return to the manor and rest in his room.

“If you do not,” she said, “then our hospitality ends tonight.”

“Is the forest particularly dangerous at night?”

“Not the forest, no.”

He didn’t press. He did as he was told.

He continued his search the next day. When night crept again, he despaired that he had missed his opportunity—that with each passing moment, hundreds more died beyond the forest. Again, he was made to retreat to the manor, where his restless men awaited news. Again, he woke at dawn to hunt.

On the third day, in the early afternoon, he sighted the stag again.

This time Eunso stood still. The sorcerer had spoken as if the creature was intelligent. If chased, it would run. If shot at, perhaps it might never appear again. So Eunso lifted his hands as he might surrender to another human, and slowly, lowered his knees to the ground.

The stag gazed down at him from its place atop the hill. After a moment, the stag began forward. Long, elegant strides, its white pelt radiant even beneath the forest canopy, under filtered sunlight. Breathtaking.

The stag paused just before Eunso. Its brilliant eyes peered, as if waiting.

_He does not permit himself to be touched by men like me, but perhaps he will make an exception for you._

Eunso lifted his hand. His fingers trembled. They were steady when the plague charged at him, steady when he faced the Lord Rohe, and steady when he was moments from death. But this was different. This was like exposing his soul to be weighed by the divine.

His fingertips brushed soft, warm hair. He breathed a sigh of relief. At the same time, emotion welled in his chest and he could not enunciate for what cause. His touch turned gently to strokes, and the stag lidded its eyes without protest. It was an impossibly beautiful creature.

How could he take its eyes? Leave it to die?

The stag suddenly turned to leave. Afraid that it had sensed his thoughts, Eunso reached forward.

“No, wait—!”

The stag stopped. Looked over its shoulder. Trotted a few steps further, and again looked back. It wanted him to follow.

He pressed a hand over his hammering chest and rose to his feet. He followed the stag through the woods. Some twenty minutes later, they emerged into view of a small lake. Sunlight glittered over the clear water, where autumn leaves have begun to drift. An islet dozed in the center, home to a single, towering tree that had turned vermilion long before its peers. He felt like he had seen this place before.

The stag paused at the bank of the lake and drank its water. Eunso knelt at its side.

“You wanted to show this to me?”

The stag peered at him.

“It’s beautiful,” he said. He looked over the lake and sighed. “You live a peaceful life, don’t you? No war. No politics. No plague. I wish I could envy you.” He paused. His voice fell to a whisper. “But there’s too much that I care about out there.”

The stag shifted. Eunso turned, watching in surprise as the animal tucked its legs and settled on the ground. It preened its front leg for a few moments, and then tucked its head over the soil.

_Bring me his golden eyes, and I will consider your request._

A cruel task.

For days he had chased this creature, thinking only of his purpose. But now he felt what he had been asked to do. Kill. Not a mindless beast, not a common hunt, but a creature that had judged him worthy and trusted him.

He reached forward and laid his hand upon its long neck. Stroked its pelt, felt the thrum of its pulse and breath. The animal did not protest. Its eyes nearly closed, as if soothed by the touch.

“I’m sorry,” whispered Eunso. “I can’t sacrifice the chance of a kingdom to save my own peace.”

The stag did not stir. Eunso hoped it would fall asleep before he took its life.

The stag eventually closed its eyes. Eunso drew his sword. Only then did the stag lift its head. Too late, Eunso plunged the blade through its chest. The stag made no sound, but laid there heaving its final breaths, its blood inking the lake’s crystal water. At last, it stopped moving.

He had killed men before. In war. In self-defense. This one felt more like a murder than anything else. A defilation when he plucked out those empty eyes. He couldn’t stand to look at what he had done. He wrapped his brutal prize in a cloth and tucked the cloth inside his robes. He hurried away from the scene.

Back at the manor, his men were delighted to know he had succeeded, wanted to see the eyes, but he refused to show or to talk about it. He found the boy lounging in the courtyard and asked to see the Lord Rohe. He was told to wait.

Hours passed. Dusk neared. At last he was granted audience.

He was led to a different room this time. Sunbe announced him, and the same smooth voice answered. A foreign scent, earthly, crisp, and sweet drifted from within. Eunso stepped into a bedroom.

The Lord Rohe’s private chamber.

Candlelight illuminated a wooden canopy bed, where a painting of the cloud mountains adorned the interior wall. White sheets laid tousled, as if recently slept in. Nearby, a majestic zither sat aside a potted bamboo tree. A desk hoisted weathered books, pots of ink with stained rims. And in the corner, a folded four-panel screen divider hid the sorcerer from view. Eunso could only see the cast shadows of his silhouette. Fabric draped over the panel top. He was changing.

Eunso looked away from the divider. Images flashed unbidden—recollections of the crease of those elbows, where his blue robes had parted to skin, recollections of his slender throat aside blood and metal. He hated the thoughts because they were dangerous, base, and foolish. But he would be lying to himself if he pretended that the sorcerer’s physical grace had no effect on him.

He sought other emotions. Like his cold, aching dismay that he’d been made to kill the gentle stag. The wrapped eyes laid in his hands now, and they felt as heavy as a human heart.

“Sunbe tells me you refused dinner,” the sorcerer said from behind the divider.

“I had no appetite,” said Eunso.

“No? It’s impolite to decline the meals my friends have labored to prepare. I’ll have them deliver a plate to your quarters.”

“There’s no need to force…”

He froze. The sorcerer had emerged from behind the divider, dressed in snowy white. A thick ribbon of the same color covered his eyes, tied behind his head. He faced Eunso and held out his palm.

“If you would return my eyes.”

It was the sorcerer.

The stag he hunted. The one he touched. The soft pelt and lidded gaze beneath his hand. His patient guide to the beautiful lake.

He suddenly realized where he had seen that lake before. It was the painting in the manor’s arrival hall.

He stumbled forward, numb with shock. Before the sorcerer, he unwrapped the cloth that carried those eyes. Still bloodstained. But they had changed since he plucked them, taking human shape. He just hadn’t the heart to notice.

His hands trembled over them. He took a moment. Willed them still, for fear that he would drop these eyes. Gently, he lifted the pair and placed them in the sorcerer’s palm.

The sorcerer turned away. Removed the ribbon from his head. Some moments later, he faced Eunso once more, those golden eyes restored to their rightful place.

“Why?” whispered Eunso.

“Why not?” said the sorcerer.

“You had me tear out your eyes. You had me stab your heart. You…”

The sorcerer turned toward a tea table. He poured himself a steaming cup, and said, “It was your choice to stab me. If you had only taken my eyes, I would have met you before the sun set. But, alas, I needed some time to recover…”

Eunso’s throat dried. His gaze fell to the bed, the tousled sheets.

He could not process the pressure in his chest. So he turned to the reason he was here.

“I’ve done what you asked. You said you would lend us your aid.”

“I said I would _consider_ it.”

Eunso held the sorcerer’s gaze and waited. Seconds passed. The sorcerer sipped his tea.

At last the Lord Rohe said, “I’m still considering it.”

_There’s no time._

Or so he wanted to plead, but Eunso feared any wrong word would destroy this chance. So he held his tongue. He tucked his bloody wrap cloth into his pocket.

“What else can I do to convince you?”

“Oh?”

The sorcerer set down his cup and walked closer. His eyes seemed to pry Eunso apart, or strip him to the bone. Same as the stag. How had Eunso not realized?

“You’re a rather serious man, aren’t you? It’s true, then, what you said last night? For the sake of Puan, you would grant me anything that is within your power to give.”

“Yes, I would.”

“Even if I asked for your life? Your soul?” The sorcerer stopped a breath away. “Your body?”

“If...that is what you want.”

The sorcerer smiled. No warmth in the curve, but perhaps faint humor. His gaze swept down Eunso, and then he took a step back and arched his eyebrow. “Then let’s see what you have.”

Eunso kept his face flat. Beneath his skin, shock jarred with shame. Never had a soul dared ask this of him, not like this. And of all the things the sorcerer could demand, this was the one he could not see coming. But if the price of his aid was only Eunso’s dignity…

He lowered his gaze and reached for the knot of his overbelt. Pulled it loose. Slipped the outer robes off his body, onto the floor. So went his inner robes too, baring his chest to the crisp air, the golden gaze. He smothered his own thoughts and reached for his underbelt.

The sorcerer caught his hands still. Eunso looked up and found an amused smile.

“Spare me the rest,” said the sorcerer.

Eunso frowned. The sorcerer released him, waving a dismissive hand as he returned to his tea table.

“The skies will crash before I have you in my bed, General. But I appreciate the willingness. You may go.”

“But the plague—”

“I’ve told you, have I not? I’m still considering. Now leave me before I _stop_ considering.”

Eunso shut his mouth. Picked up his robes and belt. Suppressing his chagrin and frustration, he excused himself into the relative safety of the halls. 


	5. 4

**_Leika_ **

* * *

The general’s displeasure saturated his aura, though he did well to keep his thoughts hidden. Sipping at his chrysanthemum tea, Leika watched the man walk into the halls—watched the gold of the candlelight upon his back, where old, faded scars from a whip marred his sun-kissed skin. The general seemed like the type of man who’d get himself into bloody corporal trouble. The type that cared too much about others and too little about himself. 

A poor fool. 

After the screen doors shut, Leika set his cup upon the table once more. He opened the windows with a dust of his hand, and folded his arms upon the sill. The sun had slipped beneath the horizon. Navy night encompassed the woods. He sighed the calm air and rested his chin upon his palm. His fingers touched his cheek, invoking memories of the gentle touch in the woods. 

He recalled the pain of the blade. The loss of his eyes. But those were not so vivid beneath the heartache of the man who did it. The etheral connection of consciousness did not permit Leika to read thoughts, but it did allow him to feel the contours of what another soul felt. For a stag, the general had struggled as if killing a child.

Perhaps he would have killed a child. 

Was the situation beyond the woods so dire? _You’ve not seen them torn apart by the people they love. Stripped, not only of their lives, but of their humanity. Screaming until their throats bleed, begging to just die…_

Old memories flashed. Leika clutched his robes tighter around his body and withdrew from the window. 

“If I’d known it was going to be like this, I’d have just _eaten_ them.” 

That was Miro’s voice. 

Leika turned around and saw the spirit in his human form, pouting from the edge of the bed. His crisp emerald eyes peered sorrowfully at Leika, who could not help but smile. 

“Be glad you did not. Soldiers taste terrible.” 

Miro stuck out his tongue. He sobered quickly. 

“Do you feel better?”

“I feel just fine,” said Leika. 

“But earlier—”

He waved a dismissive hand. “You underestimate my ether.”

“And _you_ forget that I can tell when you’re lying.” 

He frowned. “I feel fine, physically.” Paused. “I may be a little conflicted about what to do with these men.”

Miro hopped upright, a little glare in his brow. “Conflicted? Why? We ought drive them out and be done with it. Let them clean up their own mess!” 

“That was my inclination…”

“It can’t be _him_.” When Leika didn’t respond, the spirit continued. “You know they don’t deserve your help. You can’t have forgotten why you contracted me and Sunbe? Let them die. Let them rot. Unless—” He paused, suddenly realizing the thought. “Unless there’s something you want?” 

“What have they to give me but mere amusement?” 

“Then why are you so conflicted? Guilt? Is that it? You don’t owe them anything.”

Leika poured himself another cup of tea, sipping while he wondered.

Guilt. Was that it?

No, he didn’t think so. On the second day of the general’s stag hunt, what had stopped him from retracting his own offer—though he had thought about it several times—was the echo of those words. Torn apart by the people they love. Stripped of their lives and humanity. Screaming until their throats bled, begging to die. Fathers. Mothers. Children.

He didn’t care. He had stopped caring long ago. 

So why did the night wind feel like the mountainous cold of Azukan? Why could he not give Sunbe the order to chase out the soldiers? 

Perhaps it was exposing himself to the general, whose force of heart was corrosive. Leika had met many humans in his time, and though their cruelty outweighed their warmth, warmth was not uncommon. Only when it was safe to be warm, though. Only when it cost them little more than convenience. But warmth in the face of death, in the face of the winter that was Leika himself and all the dark tales they told—that was new to him. Perhaps the general’s warmth had stained his own soul when he felt it with his ether, and that poison was why he couldn’t make a decision now.

He should not have met with the general. Should not have taunted him to fight, nor tested him with the stag hunt. Should not have led him to the lake, laid beneath his gentle hand…

“Leika, you…” 

He looked up at the spirit, whose expression had changed. Miro did not finish that sentence, but looked aside and murmured a new one instead. 

“Sometimes I forget that you are not like us.” 

“Oh? Is that an expression of disappointment?” 

Miro resumed his childlike good humor and smiled. “Not at all. Shall I play you some compositions? Take your mind off this deliberation for some time. Or at least ease the trouble of it.” 

Leika accepted. Miro took to the zither. Leika transcribed some thoughts of the day into his journal, and by the time he closed the book, made his decision. 

The next morning, he awoke beside the furnace heat of Miro’s lioness, with an auburn fox tucked inside his arms. The fox stretched awake as he shifted, then tucked her small head beneath his chin. Leika rested between his spirits and waited for the sluggishness of sleep to fade. When it did, he stroked Sunbe’s fur for her attention.

“We’ll be needing some horses from the village.”

She unburrowed herself and peered at him. After a moment, she shifted to the edge of the bed and resumed her human figure. 

“You’ve made up your mind, then,” she said. 

“I’m curious about this plague. Think of it as an excursion.” 

She shared a glance with Miro, whose tail swayed without surprise. She nodded.

“Very well. If it’s your wish.”

She informed him that she would be back by noon with his horses, and then vanished in a mist. 

Meanwhile Leika packed his belongings. As a sorcerer, he could live off of nothing but the clothes on his body. But some time in the past he had been spoiled with luxury, and he treasured that time, so he clung to luxury still. He packed a bottle of his favorite springblossom balm that magic could not replicate. Several sets of fine silk robes and hair ribbons. Jewelry—fine jewelry was a mark of magic, and it frightened the common people, which kept them at bay. He packed his most recent notebook as well. And, of course, his beloved jade comb, the one which carried the pearl of the Sea Dragon.

When he was done, he prepared a special meal and visited the garden shrine, secluded in the anterior courtyard of the manor. The warding spells prevented the soldiers from accidentally coming across this place. Even Sunbe and Miro rarely disturbed the shrine itself, though they took care to maintain the garden around it. Leika took care of maintaining the small interior daily. 

Today, he arrived with a bowl of lotus and venison soup, and a bundle of wildflowers. He tidied the offerings from yesterday away from the offering table, which sat beneath a stone tablet. He placed the soup and flowers in their place, and in a pot of ash, lighted three fresh incense sticks. He smiled as the smoke frayed. 

He did not say much. There was little to say. Daeron would understand, anyway. 

Afterward, he cast a preservation spell over the shrine and went to have his own meal. Miro had provided the visitors with the last of their fresh food. Not that he needed to: since day two, the soldiers had been stocking away their leftovers, presumably for the journey back to the provincial capital. An optimistic and opportunistic lot. 

Near noon, Leika sensed the approach of a trio of horses. He could not sense Sunbe, or Miro for that matter, because the consciousness of spirits seemed to exist apart from the etheral bonds of the world. But Sunbe was certainly on her way back. He dressed in light, mobile gear, tucked his dagger and his sword, knotted his hair, and sought out the general. He picked out the man’s brooding consciousness outside, near the koi pond. 

He passed a few loitering soldiers on the way to the pond. It was their first time seeing him, and they reacted predictably. He ignored their petrified gazes and went on his way. 

He spotted the general first, sitting on a stone bench in the pond garden. His head was lowered, loose strands of hair hanging in exhaustion, his thin robes stretched over his broad back. One tall, thin soldier stood to his right, quiet. Another stout soldier with an unfashionable beard sat to his left, chattering.

The tall soldier noticed Leika first. He blinked, struck for some moments before his face paled and his hands froze at his sides. His reaction alerted the other two: the stout soldier widened his eyes, grabbed the general’s arm, and started stuttering. 

The general turned. Leika felt the man’s emotions process at lightspeed as those eyes took in his dress, his weapons, and end on smothering gratitude. A proper fool—Leika had not even done anything yet.

“Eunso?” he said, echoing the stuttering soldier without the stutter. “Is that your name?”

The general answered with a relieved smile. “Yes. Yes, and these are my men, Su Jaelim and Hong Muyen.”

“Ah. I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but it’s more of an unpleasant imposition. Regardless. We’ll have to keep each other company. You can call me Leika.”

There was another wave of reactions to his introduction. Leika withdrew his consciousness to avoid the constant onslaught. He had been in the habit of letting his mind roam free these past forty years, but human hearts were terrible cesspools to be involved with. He would have to reserve his cognizance expansion for necessity.

The general—Eunso—sent his men to collect their things. Left alone with Leika, he came to arm’s length and said, “Thank you for this. On behalf of Puan, thank you.” 

Leika gazed at his chestnut eyes. On an otherwise hard and rugged face, those eyes were jarringly gentle. And at this particular moment, they were desperately seeking to convey his sincerity. 

“This comes at a price,” said Leika. 

Eunso nodded. “Of course. I will pay it. I just...”

“Just?”

“I just hope you don’t ask me to hurt you again.” 

Leika arched a disapproving eyebrow. “Don’t be charmed by this face, general. I’m not one to try softness around. One day, before this adventure is over, perhaps you will be wishing to hurt me.” 

Eunso hesitated. Looked down. “I apologize, Lord Rohe.” 

“Leika. The locals will faint in fright if you and your men don’t lose the habit of calling me that.” 

“Leika.” 

He turned away from the general. 

By the time Sunbe arrived with the horses, they were ready to depart. With the absence wards spelled around the manor, Leika and his two spirits set off alongside the soldiers. 

Some fifteen minutes into the ride, he pulled his mare near enough the general to converse. The other soldiers noticed and distanced themselves. 

“We’ve been cursory on the details of the curse,” said Leika. “I presume there’s more you’ve not shared?” 

“Yes,” said Eunso. He opened his mouth to respond, but paused and looked over his shoulder. “Muyen, you know as much as I do. Mind sharing it with Lord—with Leika?” 

The soldier named Muyen looked like he did mind, but he obeyed regardless. 

“We first caught wind of the curse about four weeks ago, my lord, from Sune—by the Sangoli border. One of its outskirt villages came down with an odd sickness. We...we’ve seen it ourselves. Absurd internal bleeding, fevers, scorched skin—the victims die within hours, sometimes minutes, and then come back to life.”

“Undead? Feral?”

“Y-yes, my lord. In essence. You know of this curse?”

“I know of spells that reanimate corpses. I don’t know of curses that spread the spell. How does it spread?” 

“We’re not exactly sure. Prolonged exposure does it. But so does getting bitten.”

“Can you kill them?” 

“Kill the undead? No. You can burn them. Sever their body parts. But the curse that animates their bodies still works with anything attached to the head.”

“And what has Puan been doing about it so far?” 

“We’ve tried locating the source. It didn’t go so well.” Muyen paused. “Our northern regions are so infected that we can’t move far in without magic backing us. So we have the council of sorcerers, and in the meantime we’ve quarantined the affected regions.”

“So your court mages, are they dead or incompetent?”

“That…”

The general cut in. “A good number of them are dead. We could only determine that the cause of the plague is a curse, but none have the skill to break it. Whoever brought this about is powerful.”

“And possibly among those that Akugal calls to court,” said Leika.

He did not need his etheral connection to feel the tension in the air. But the general only frowned.

“Try not to scare them,” he said. “They’ve gone through enough as is.” 

“Is that an order, general?” 

Eunso hesitated. “I wouldn’t dare, my lord.” 

Leika smiled with cold humor and snapped his reins. His horse trotted to the head of the lot, leading them by the shortest route. The men who thought he was out of earshot began to whisper about him, and he did not care enough to eavesdrop. The general was quiet. 

Mid-afternoon, they emerged from the mistwood forest. The sprawl of Puan greeted Leika, the forest rimming woodland plains for as far as the eye could see, unchanged after forty years. Even the outskirt village across the river remained the same size, clustered homes for the farmers and hunters in the vicinity. 

A wide wooden bridge connected the forest to the village path. As they approached, Sunbe rode to Leika’s side. 

“Something is wrong,” she said softly. 

He glanced at her. A spirit’s sense was never wrong. He flared out his etheral connection, sweeping the village. Simmers of animal consciousness grazed his cognizance. But no human soul. No—instead, some grimy haze of foreign, dark magic lingered in the air. 

He slowed his horse. The general soon caught up. 

“It seems I’ve delayed you a day too long,” said Leika.

“You mean—”

“The village is empty.” 

A wave of dread, guilt, and distress disturbed Leika. He winced and severed his etheral connection again. They rode on forward.

The smell came first. Faint, but unmistakable. The sickly sweet taste of putrid cherries. Farm tools had been strew across the dirt road. Stacks of hack had been strewn. Flies swarmed over a clump of drying guts—and Leika only recognized them to be guts because he had seen them plenty before. Blood painted the wooden homes. 

A pair of soldiers cursed. Aside from that, the group processed the sight quietly. This would not be the first of the plague they’d seen. Calmly, the general ordered his men to search for survivors. 

Leika did not tell them there were no survivors. Perhaps they would find other useful things. He went on his on way to inspect the carnage.

The further he traveled into the village, the more decorated the landscape. Torn cloth, torn flesh. Organs, and some severed limbs. But no bodies.

Well, no. Incorrect. 

A body did remain. Leika found it lying in a pool of blood, on the floor of an abandoned home. A human baby absent half its face, too underdeveloped to facilitate a spread of the curse. 

His palm ached. He realized suddenly that he was digging too much into the hilt of his sword. He shook out his hand and shook off the disturbance, and returned to the dirt road.

He found Miro crouched in the shadow of a home, over an eyeball.

“Thoughts?” said Leika.

Miro nudged the eyeball with his fingertip, then scrunched his nose. “It’s sorcery, that’s for sure. Only your kind comes up with this kind of malice.” He blinked, then looked at Leika apologetically. “Sorry. Not _you_.”

“No, I agree.” He glanced over his shoulder, where the others were now approaching. “A reasonable man wonders if Akugal wants my help or my head.” 

“These boys seem virtuous, at least.”

“For now. We’d best sort this out before they start suspecting me.” 

He walked toward the approaching soldiers, meeting Eunso midroad. 

“What is the plan, general?” 

“I was going to ask your thoughts.”

“The village is empty. We should be on our—”

“No, I mean—the blood’s not a day old yet. The villagers, the cursed ones, they gravitate toward the nearest cluster of hosts. That should be the city of Narim.”

“Narim is in the _opposite_ direction.” 

“Yes, but it has a population of near ten thousand. If we head for the capital now, we would be abandoning them to die.” 

Leika folded a hand against his hip. “Are you asking my thoughts or telling me what to do?”

Eunso sighed. “Please, Leika. With your magic, we might be able to do something.” He paused. “You would be able to see the curse for yourself today. We might even have a solution by nightfall. I beg you…” 

“Enough.” Leika turned and made for his horse. “If you plan to catch up to a plague, we’d best not waste here with talk.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why the delay you ask? it's certainly not because i'm distracted with playing cyberpunk 2077....


	6. 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Xmas! And thank you all for the lovely comments and kudos!

**_Eunso_ ** ****

* * *

Just as dusk began to paint the sky, they arrived in view of Narim. 

The port city sat upon the slope of a seaside hill, a cluster of refined clay and wood buildings almost like the provincial capital itself. Most days the dock would be busy. Most days the outskirt farmers would be toiling, the fishermen wrapping up their catch. But the fields were abandoned as far as Eunso could see, and the seas were void of fishers. 

They had ridden as fast as they could, hoping to catch up to the plagued villagers along the way. But their horses could not sprint as indefinitely as the undead, cursed by magic. Eunso prayed that the horde had detoured, but when he saw the bloodied sickle strewn in the cornfield, he knew. Narim had already been infected. 

Whether the survivors could be saved now was up to the sorcerer. Eunso urged his exhausted horse just a few trots closer to Leika, who was surveying the passing fields and empty farm homes with an unreadable expression. They were on the main path now, perhaps fifteen minutes out from the city proper. 

“The blood on the field looks fresh,” he said to the sorcerer. “They can’t have been here for long. If you can cover for us, my men and I will extract the survivors.” 

“There will be infected among those survivors,” said Leika. “You’re not sure how this curse transmits, no? And I haven’t figured out how to break it yet. If you or your men catch it before I solve the riddle, you are as good as dead. There’s no magic to bring back the dead, general.” 

“Then what do you suggest?” 

“The curse has already hit the city. The best thing we can do right now is slow the spread. I’ll send Sunbe to secure the docks and cut off the ships, if they haven’t already sailed.” 

“And the survivors?” 

A pause. “One step at a time, general. We’ll need to see what situation is.”

Eunso eyed the sorcerer. He looked calm, as unmoved as he was by the carnage in the village. What did he truly think? Feel? Was it as cold and distant as his eyes? Would he abandon the city if he found the inconvenience too great? 

“You should know,” said Eunso, “that if they can be saved, then saving them will be our prerogative.” 

“And you should know that if you die from it, I’m heading back to my woods.” 

Eunso faced the forward city and snapped his reins. 

Minutes later, they reached the rim of the city proper. Sunbe vanished to secure the dock while Leika, the boy, and the soldiers continued along the road the undead would have taken. Narim had no gates, so the curse would have invaded as easily as an army. The door of first outskirt home they reached was swinging open. Some ways down the road, a donkey laid groaning on its side, crushed beneath a broken wagon of abandoned goods. That was no more horrific to Eunso than the blood smearing the street, but Leika stopped his horse and moved aside the wagon with a wave of his hand. He dismounted to right the donkey, who stumbled about in disorientation before wandering off. 

Eunso pulled his horse over to Leika’s side. “Can you sense anything? Anyone?” 

“Some,” said Leika. “A few hiding indoors. A few sick. Over there, maybe five houses down, there’s a cluster that’s on the verge of succumbing. A family huddled indoors.” The sorcerer glanced at Eunso’s face and sighed. “The bulk of the horde is gathered in the inner city, around a crowd of  _ mostly  _ healthy humans. I assume they’ve holed up behind a barrier. But I sense the dark magic even among that group, so it won’t be long before they’re consumed from the inside.” 

“How many alive?” said Eunso. 

“I don’t know. A few hundred among the group. Several more scattered about.”

“If we create a distraction for the horde…” 

“Don’t be stupid,” said Leika. “In the time it takes us to do that, the curse will overtake the ones among the healthy. The wise course of action would be—”

“Stay back!” 

Eunso turned toward the sound of drawing swords. A few of his soldiers pointed weapons at a staggering, bloodied man. Tashina had leapt off his horse and placed himself between the man and Eunso. The man—he was young, maybe Eunso’s age, with tears streaking down his face, with eyes still lucid. But a clear bite mark blooded his shoulder and he walked with a limp. 

“Please,” the man rasped, “have mercy, have grace! My daughter—” 

Eunso dismounted and walked to Tashina’s side. “Stay where you are, please,” he said to the man. When the man stopped walking, he gestured for Tashina to lower the weapon. He looked at Leika. “Can you help him?” 

“Forget about me,” said the man, his voice uneven, as if he struggled to get out the words. “It’s too late for me. But my daughter is...still inside, she’s still alive. Please,  _ please _ —help her, at least help her…” 

“Leika,” Eunso said again. 

The sorcerer walked toward the wounded man, who stumbled back. “No! You can’t touch me, I’ll—”

Leika grabbed the man’s shoulder. The man gasped in pain. 

“Stay still,” said the sorcerer.

Moans of agony erupted from the man. Eunso could not see him, blocked as he was by the sorcerer’s back. Neither could he see Leika’s face. But the moans contorted into something strained, verging feral. He recognized those noises.

“Leika!” 

The screams became a snarl. Leika took a step back, thrown off balance as the cursed man lunged at him. Bloodied fingers clawed into the sorcerer’s shoulders and teeth snapped at his throat, held back only by the sorcerer’s grip. Eunso’s hand fell to the hilt of his sword as he started forward. 

Before he had taken two steps, the cursed man was thrown back—and exploded into white flames. The heat scorched Eunso’s cheeks, so powerful that the cursed man had no time to scream—one moment he was falling, and the next moment, he was gone. 

Leika turned to face the soldiers, dusting the grime from his shoulders as if nothing had happened. He eyed Tashina. 

“Three doors down to your left, back corner.”

Tashina didn’t react. 

“Well?” said Leika. “Go get the girl.” 

“Go,” said Eunso, and Tashina finally went. 

Leika sighed. “This curse is more trouble than I thought. It’ll take me time to unravel it, but pitiably, that’s time we can’t afford at the moment. So here’s my proposal, general.”

“I’m listening.” 

“I’m going to have Miro ward the city. Nothing gets out. In the meantime, we fight our way through the horde and into the barricade, and once we’re there, we pluck out the infected from among the healthy. Then we burn the rest of the city.”

Eunso frowned and shook his head. “There are survivors scattered throughout the city. We’ll clean out the infected from within the barricade and use it as a safe zone. Then we’ll comb through the city and save who we can.  _ Then  _ we burn the city.” 

“You’re creating a lot of work for me, general.”

“Is that unreasonable? We’ve already agreed that you can name any price.” 

Golden eyes pinned him. After a moment, Leika turned toward the boy Miroka, who was watching with an amused smile from atop his horse. Leika outstretched his hand and the boy took it, closing his eyes. When he opened those eyes, Eunso could have sworn that the emerald green flickered gold. A moment later the boy was off, presumably to ward the city.

“Our horses won’t make it through the horde,” said Leika, “and we’ll need them for the journey back. Have a pair of your soldiers keep watch outside the city.” 

By then, Tashina had returned with the cursed man’s young toddler. Eunso picked two of his men, including Jaelim, to lead the horses and girl out of danger. Despite his quivering, Jaelim was reluctant to go. Eunso promised that he’d see him soon, and then continued with the rest of his soldiers into the city.

The curse had something of a hive mind. Those already taken by it clustered for the same prey. Those freshly turned were probably heading the same way. A small convenience for the Eunso’s group—they did not run into many infected on the way to the city center, and the few that did come along, Leika burnt to dust before they could scream. Eunso wondered if it was as easy as it looked. Did the sorcerer have an infinite reserve of power? Or was it limited? Would he tire? 

The court enchanters tired easily. Magic drained the spirit and ached the mind, they said. 

What about Leika? 

He showed no sign of fatigue, at least for the twenty minute duration of their hurry toward the city center. At last they reached the audible perimeter of the horde, echoing inhuman rasps and groans drifting through the dense streets. Eunso could taste the rot, thick putrid air in every lungful. At the corner turn of a narrow alley, hidden just behind a two-story building, Leika gestured for them to stop. He beckoned Eunso alone forward. 

Eunso went. Leika nodded toward the bend. Eunso peeked around it, and there, a block down and just out of earshot, was a cluster of moving corpses. Several hundred bodies at least, and no doubt thousands more out of view. Beyond the crowd were the thick walls of the city highlord’s estate, too tall to be climbed, though the corpses were certainly trying. Without sorcery, reaching the entrance would be impossible. 

Eunso withdrew back around the bend, his heart thundering from the horrific sight. He glanced at his men, who understood from his expression what was around the corner. He turned back to Leika. 

“You have a plan?” 

Leika raised an eyebrow. He looked unphased by the horror. “You look like you expect me to spell them to dust right here.” 

“I’d prefer it if you lifted the curse from those that still can be saved, but yes, spelling the horde to dust works too. I’ll take what I can get.” 

The sorcerer scoffed softly. “Magic is the great panacea, is it not? Sadly, general, we are no longer in my domain. I don’t have premade arrays about the premises to direct my magic, so my spellwork must be specific and targeted.”

“I thought your plan was to burn them all after we saved the survivors?” 

“Yes. After we’ve drawn inner wards and I’ve no pressing need to reserve my ether. Massive force creation is uncontrollable and picking them off one by one will siphon my strength. Not to mention I might not be able to keep up if they all charge at once. We either risk burning down the sanctuary walls or we deplete my magic. Neither sound very enticing to me.” 

Eunso sighed and peeked around the bend again. He turned back to find Leika watching him calmly.

“The curse fears fire,” Eunso said. “If you can spell our swords to burn, we can cut an opening through the horde. The hard part will be convincing the survivors to open the gates. But I assume you can just spell them open?” 

“I could break the gates. Unlocking them will take longer.”

“As long as you can unbreak them after we’re in.”

“Yes. But I have a better idea.”

The sorcerer started down the alley again. Eunso gestured for his men to follow. 

They ducked through one of the broken doors at the alley’s end. The door led to the interior of a three-story complex—a tavern on the first two floors, and an entertainment parlor on the third. Here the scent of blood and piss intermingled with seductive perfumes. Silks were strewn along the halls, bloody handprints streaking the walls. But as usual, no bodies. 

Leika took them through a trashed suite where a zither laid toppled beside the tousled bed. A man and a woman’s robes had been unceremoniously dropped upon the floor—midway through a tryst, perhaps, or even deep asleep when the disturbance came. On the far side of the room, the screen doors to the balcony were swinging open in the breeze. Maybe a desperate exit route for the unlucky client and host. Eunso could hear the horde groaning below. 

Leika walked to the balcony. Eunso joined him. Across the way was the wall of the highlord’s estate.

“You’re planning to fly us across?” said Eunso.

“Ever seen a mage fly, general?”

Eunso frowned. “No, but I’d never seen a shifting shrine before either.”

Leika smiled wryly. “That was merely advance illusion magic on the arrays of my domain. Flying is a separate matter entirely. And it’s not possible. So, no. I’m planning to make a bridge. Afraid of heights?” 

Eunso cleared his throat. “Not fond of heights. But I’ll manage.” 

“Good. Have your men gather the materials here. It’ll be easier for me to work with what we already have.” 

Eunso gave the order. They rummaged through the floor to collect tables, cabinets, anything with a flat surface wide enough to walk on. He was lugging his second table back to the room when he heard a long, resounding crash. Clear as thunder. The echo of it nearly drowned out the pain hissed that followed. 

And then, shrieks echoed from the streets. 

They had been noticed.

Eunso cursed and hurried back to the balcony room. The shrieking grew in volume, every notch churning his gut. Vibrations thrummed beneath the soles of his feet as the weight of the horde slammed against the building—no doubt they would be inside soon. How long did they have to escape? A minute? Seconds? 

He spotted a pair of his men, white-faced in the halls. He shouted at them to hurry back to the room. By the time he rounded the corner, Leika was already crafting the bridge, slates of furniture lined up one after the other from the balcony to the estate wall. He glanced at Eunso and the arriving soldiers and beckoned his hand, and the furniture in their arms flew away and into place. They still needed one or two more pieces. 

Outside, thousands of eyes leered up at them, while hundreds more spilled around the building sides. Downstairs, screeches reverberated through the wellway, the halls. 

“Go,” said Leika, looking at Eunso. “Get on, now!” 

Eunso glanced at the makeshift bridge. Only magic kept the pieces from crashing to the ground, and Leika directed them with an outstretched hand, as if supporting the weight with his palm. Eunso vaguely remembered the words of the court enchanters—without inscriptions, magic must be maintained with concentration. If the horde reached Leika…

He drew his sword. At the same time, Muyen and Tashina entered the room with a long bed between them. Leika flicked his hand and the bed soared outside, forming the final piece of the bridge.

“Across the bridge, now!” Eunso shouted to his men. “Go, go, go!” 

Muyen obeyed instantly, leaping to the balcony and swinging onto the first tabletop. The board tilted beneath his weight. Leika’s brow flickered, but with a small motion in his fingertip, the table stabilized. Muyen hurried forward while the next man followed behind. They moved as quickly as they could, but the bridge was only wide enough for one body. 

By the time the second man crawled atop the bridge, Eunso could hear the frenzied footsteps and feral shrieks just down the hall. He counted six of his eight men in the room or on the bridge. He scanned the halls for the last two—stomach sank as he glimpsed the first corpse round the rightside corner. A screech tore out of its throat as it spotted him, cut off suddenly as the horde behind it stampeded over it. 

“Fuck! Fuck!” 

Voices from the left. Eunso turned and saw his last two men sprinting toward him. They dropped the cabinet they were holding and dashed for their lives. Seconds before the corpses reached, they leapt into the balcony room. Eunso slammed the door shut.

“Eunso, move!” 

Leika’s voice. Eunso dodged on instinct. A second later, the couch in the room barricaded the door—barely in time to keep the door from opening as the corpses thudded against it. Eunso turned to the balcony and saw his men teetering on the bridge. Leika struggled to right the balance, and though he managed it quickly, the corpses slamming against the door and wooden couch were dividing his attention. 

Just as his sixth man crawled onto the bridge, the door splintered. A bloodied arm shot inside, hands clawing apart the opening. They had seconds before the corpse crawled its way inside, and they needed seconds more to get everyone onto the bridge. 

“Shit,” hissed Eunso. He held out his sword. “Leika, I’ll cover you—”

“I can cover myself. Get on the bridge—”

Just then, a cry echoed from across the bridge. Eunso and Leika turned simultaneously to see Muyen falling to his knees on the wall. He shouted, pained, “Don’t shoot!” 

It was the interior. The survivors were attacking. 

Before Eunso could worry about it, the screeching corpses broke through the door, displacing the wooden couch. Eunso stumbled back as one leapt toward him with inhuman speed. He lifted his sword to decapitate it—and milliseconds before his blade hit, the corpse erupted into flames. A soldier on the bridge screamed as their platform wobbled. 

“I’ve got it, Leika, just—” 

Leika grabbed Eunso’s collar as the next two corpses crawled over the couch. Eunso, startled, glanced at the sorcerer, whose eyes were focused on the bridge, trying to right the walkway before the soldiers slipped off to their deaths. Before Eunso could speak, Leika grabbed the blade of his sword, sending it ablaze in white flames. He released Eunso wordlessly. Eunso found his footing and charged at the oncoming corpses. 

His flaming weapon disoriented them, giving him a relatively safe opening for decapitation—at first. But with the door splintered and couch shoved aside, nothing hindered the corpses from spilling inside. Those who veered from his blade charged for Leika and the soldiers, and Eunso had no moment to breathe, no moment to pause. He cut down two, six, ten—saw the last of his men crawl atop the bridge. He cut down three more before Leika called to him.

“Eunso!” 

He glanced over his shoulder. Leika held out his hand from atop the first hovering table. He started moving toward the bridge—one step before corpses swarmed him, cutting him off. The heat of flames scorched his skin, but Leika could not burn all of them without risking burning Eunso too. He had to fight his way through. 

But he couldn’t kill faster than they filled the room. One, three, five more down—he was no closer to the bridge. At this rate, if their blood and saliva did not infect him, their mere overwhelming proximity…

A shriek cut off abruptly. He decapitated one corpse in front of him, slashed through the second’s torso, sending it into flames. He caught a glimpse of auburn tint, the glint of shortknife. He cut down a third corpse, and as its body crumpled, he saw Sunbe among the fray. 

“Go,” she said as she danced through the bodies. “Don’t keep him waiting.” 

Eunso didn’t need to be told twice. He cut down another corpse in his path and took the opening to the bridge. The last of his men were reaching the other side. Leika alone stayed atop the nearest table, quietly holding out his hand. Eunso grabbed it, letting the sorcerer pull him onto the bridge. 

He fell onto his knees atop the table, exhausted. He was going to push upright, run the rest of the way across, but he stopped when Leika knelt at his side. He scanned the sorcerer’s calm face, then glanced over the sorcerer’s shoulder. His men were on the wall. The rest of the bridge had collapsed onto the ground below. Their table alone hovered slowly across the airspace. 

A warm hand touched his cheek. Eunso’s gaze jolted back to Leika. The sorcerer was close. Closer than ever they had been, just a breath away. Eunso could smell his scent, crystalline above the rot and grime of death—the scent of some soft, honeyed earth. His heart thundered and his blood rushed, residue adrenaline compounding with surprise and confusion and that goddamned instinctive attraction. He searched the sorcerer’s face for expression, any hint of the concern he suddenly craved—and he found nothing.

After a moment, Leika breathed softly and pulled back his hand.

“Clean,” he said simply. 

He had been checking for the curse. Eunso sighed in relief. He shook off the strange moment and glanced back at the balcony, where corpses clawed fruitlessly from the rails at their floating table. Sunbe was gone. 

Eunso glanced at the wall. It was just instinct. And sure enough, there among his men stood the slender woman, not a spot of blood on her clothes, not a bead of sweat on her brow. 

“Hells,” he muttered softly. He looked down at the horde below. “I thought you said it’s impossible to fly.” 

Leika stood. “It’s impossible for the human body. You can certainly levitate an object and travel on it.” 

Eunso figured as much. He’d just wanted to fill the silence. 

“General.” 

Eunso looked up. Leika was gazing at the crowd on the wall. 

“If you can avoid sharing my identity with the citizens here, it would be appreciated.” 

“I...yes. Of course.” 

They reached the wall soon after. A cluster of about a dozen guards had climbed up the interior side to meet them, weapons drawn and arrows aimed. Eunso hurried first to Muyen, who was clutching a wound on his shoulder. He sighed in relief to see that the arrow could have pierced nothing fatal. Down on the interior side of the wall, fearful eyes peered up at them. The visible crowd numbered maybe a hundred, nowhere near as dense as it could be, meaning the elites of the city had deliberately barricaded out the common folk for fear of infection. 

A surge of anger heated his blood. But Eunso tamed it with some effort. This kind of action—it was selfish, ugly, but understandable. Most parents would not risk their children for a stranger. 

“Isn’t this a generous welcome?” murmured Leika. The guards stiffened. Eunso straightened. “You come risking your lives to save these folk, and they meet you with their blades drawn. Well, general? How do you plan to deal with this?” 

Eunso eyed the cluster of guards for a leader to address. There—an older, gray-bearded man was pushing through the others, who moved aside quickly and deferred with a nod of their heads. Eunso waited a few more seconds for that man to arrive at the head of the cluster. 

The man was dressed in uniform. Not the highlord. But perhaps his chief guard. He scanned Eunso and landed his eyes on the dragon insignia of Eunso’s coat. 

“The Black Scales,” murmured the bearded man. He met Eunso’s gaze. “I thought the capital had turned its back on us for good.” 

“Not yet,” said Eunso. “I am Sen Eunso, Second General of—” 

“Eunso?  _ That  _ Eunso? The Stone Lion?” 

Eunso sighed silently. He had no warmth with that moniker. But if it would earn him enough respect to get the guards to follow his orders…

“Yes. That’s me.”

The guards, whispering now, began to lower their weapons. The bearded man had uncrossed his arms and took two steps forward. 

“What does this mean? If Lord Akugal’s sent you here, then—then you must have a cure? You can save our people from—” he glanced at the clawing horde below “—from all this?” 

“I’m not sure that we have a cure yet,” said Eunso, “but I wouldn’t order my men to their deaths. We’re here to help, yes.” He glanced at Leika. “I’ve a sorcerer with me who can subdue the corpses outside. But he’s identified a few infected among you, and we’ll first need to quarantine those.”

“That’s impossible. We checked everyone for bite marks, blood, fever…”

“The curse spreads through other means,” said Leika. “And if I’m not mistaken, there’s one inside that building that’s only a few minutes away from succumbing. If you don’t want to lose more people, I suggest you give us passage right away.” 

The guard went quiet. If he had reservations, it was outweighed by his fear. He glanced at Eunso. When Eunso nodded, the guard ordered the others to make way. 

“See to my wounded, please,” said Eunso. 

The nearest pair of guards bowed their heads. 

Eunso followed behind Leika. The bearded chief guard accompanied them. 

They descended the wallside stairs and passed through the estate crowd. A closer look revealed that most of those gathered outside the main building of the estate were family clusters. The wealthier folk of the city, plus a few merchants, a few well-dressed servants. All of them stared—at Leika, barely skimming Eunso. Most of them whispered. Eunso caught some stray words here and there.  _ Magus. Divinity. Save us _ . A woman, appearing traumatized, staggered forward, hand outstretched to touch Leika like he was some kind of savior. The sorcerer brushed her off with an indifferent stare on his inhumanly beautiful face, and only then did the whispers become dubious and cold. 

Leika didn’t seem to care. Eunso didn’t have the space of mind either. 

Soon they came to the main structure of the estate—a floral manor suited for the highlord. Guards stationed the entryway, guards who deferred to the bearded chief in their company. House servants bowed their heads and moved aside their path. No one stopped them until they turned down a particular hall of the manor, and then it was the bearded guard who cut in front of Leika.

“Wait. This is the young master’s wing. We can go another route—”

“This is where the infection is,” said Leika.

The chief guard paled. “No. No, that can’t be…” 

“Excuse me,” said Leika, pushing past the chief guard. The man stumbled on his feet. 

Eunso grasped the man’s shoulder. He shared a brief look with the guard, some firmness that he hoped gave reassurance. Of what, Eunso could not say. Reassurance that by morning, somehow, at least one thing in this world would still be okay. 

They continued behind Leika. Just as they reached the sliding doors to what seemed to be a private chamber, a woman stepped out. A housemaid, who jumped with a platter of bowls and quickly stepped aside. Behind her, another woman rose from a bedside. 

This woman was dressed in fine silks, had her hair hoisted in noble style. Not yet middle-age, but too old to be a girl. Past her, Eunso glimpsed a small body on a bed, a kneeling physician. Out drifted the scent of herbs and candle and fever. 

His heart plummeted. 

“Sanon?” said the woman. “What is this? Who are these men?”

“Lady Aguma,” said the chief guard, bowing his head deeply. “This is General Sen from Puan and his sorcerer. They’ve come to help our people—”

“Help?” Her breath picked up. Eunso spotted streaks of makeup smeared beneath her eyes, exhaustion in the shadows. “You can help? My son, you can save him?” 

The cold knot in Eunso’s gut twisted further. Of all the people who could be infected…

“That is your son in the bed?” said Leika.

The woman made way immediately. “Yes, that’s him. He—he was out in the city when the plague came. And he came down with a high fever just a half-hour ago. It’s been getting worse, and I—I worry that—”

“He has only a few minutes left,” said Leika.

Quiet. 

“What?” whispered the woman. 

“He has minutes,” Leika repeated, stepping inside the room. “The curse will take him soon.”

The woman stumbled after him. The chief guard did not move from his spot at the frame. Eunso followed, his breath barely holding even as he saw the face of the infected child. A child. No more older than ten years. A little boy. 

“You can save him,” the woman said, grasping at Leika’s shirt. He did not shove her off this time, but neither did he react. So she turned to Eunso and tugged at his arm, her voice beginning to break. “You can save him, right? That’s why you’re here. You have a cure. You have a cure. Please, tell me you have a cure.”

Eunso’s chest ached. He wished he could nod. But Leika’s words rang in his head.

The curse would take him time to unravel. Time they did not have. 

Eunso covered the woman’s hand. “My lady, the best we can do at the moment is to isolate him from the others.”

She dug her fingers into his shirt. “But can you  _ save  _ him?”

He lowered his gaze by way of answer. The woman wailed in pain. 

Behind her, Leika sat at the child’s bedside and laid a hand over the boy’s brow. The boy was struggling to breathe. Brows knotted in deep pain. Blood seeped from his nose, blood the physician blotted at with a soaked cloth. Death looked like it would be a mercy. 

“He’s suffering,” Leika said softly. 

Eunso looked up at the sorcerer’s face. It was as expressionless as ever, but his voice betrayed something Eunso had not heard before. And the way his fingers gently cupped the boy’s cheek…

Leika looked at Eunso. Eunso didn’t know what the sorcerer was searching for. After a moment, Leika lowered his gaze again and closed his eyes. The boy winced and whimpered on the bed. 

The woman crawled to his bedside and clutched his little hand. She called his name over and over, begging him to be well again, the desperate encouragement of a young, new mother. It went on like this for minutes. 

At last, the boy’s whimpers faded. Stopped. He heaved out a sigh and went still. 

“Joan? Joan!” 

Leika stood. Eunso, who had dared hope for a miracle, felt his heart sink as the mother wailed over the unresponsive child. Leika walked past him. Eunso followed. 

Outside, beyond the shut doors and the muted cries, the sorcerer fixed the cuffs of his sleeves. Eunso stopped at his side. 

“What did you do?” he asked. 

“The curse,” Leika said calmly, “manipulates the human brain. It cannot operate if the mind is damaged beyond repair.” 

“So you…”

“I scorched the boy’s brain. At least he can rest in peace.” 

Quiet again. A few steps away, the chief guard, who had overheard, stumbled back and slumped against the wall. 

Eunso did not know what to say. So it was Leika who eventually spoke again. Softly, with his thumb tracing his knuckles, his gaze upon the back of his own hand.

“The spellwork is beyond what I can resolve in mere minutes. I’m sorry.” 

With that, Leika turned and continued down the hall. 


	7. 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year!

**_Eunso_ **

The small handful of others infected among the haven met the same fate as the boy. Eunso was sure he had not imagined it—in the aftermath of the boy’s passing, Leika had appeared...vulnerable. Just a touch. Just the faintest note in his voice, in his idle motions and downcast eyes. In his simple apology.

On one hand it frightened Eunso, that this curse appeared, at least at the moment, greater than the sorcerer of legend. On the other hand it shook him. Leika had professed cold indifference to the fate of the people only days ago, and Eunso had accepted that all would be little more than practical business for the sorcerer. But that moment in the highlord’s hall was not indifferent.

If anything, Leika had attempted to be indifferent and failed. 

When the haven was secured, news of what the sorcerer had done traveled through the two hundred survivors within the walls. No doubt some were relieved, but they all shrank a little further back when Leika passed, fearing that they would be next. He paid them no mind, making for the high surface of the wall once more. He allowed Eunso to follow as far as the highest stair, and then he turned and crossed his arms.

“You will stay here,” said Leika. 

Eunso hesitated. “You think I would drag you down. I understand that, but your spellwork requires concentration. There are thousands of corpses out there. If anything happens—”

“I have Sunbe,” said Leika. As if on cue, the woman—or whatever manner of entity she was—materialized aside Leika. “ _You_ would just drag me down. Just because you’ve talent with the blade does not mean you can withstand the infection of the curse.”

“How will you protect the survivors you find? We came here to save them. We bargained with _you_ to save them. What is the point if I hide behind a wall because I’m afraid of infection?” 

“You forget,” said Leika. “If you die, I go back to my woods. By keeping yourself out of harm’s way, you _are_ saving them.”

“That’s—” 

“I don’t intend to ferry back all the survivors,” said Leika. “Just those within the range of damage when I set these corpses ablaze. There are not many of those. It can be done in five, maybe six trips.” 

“Then let me join you. We could make three or four trips instead.” 

“No. I’ve no intention of bringing you, general. If you’re so insistent on coming along, you can jump down yourself.” 

“Leika—” 

Sunbe stepped forward and bowed her head. 

“You need not worry, my lord. I will protect the humans, and Leika will clear the path. No harm will come to the living.” 

Leika turned away. Eunso clenched his jaw. Maybe it was not so much courage as pride, the idea that he would be a burden rather than a help. Or maybe it was the way Leika had softly apologized in the lord’s manor hall. He did not want _that_ diving back among the corpses without as much support as Eunso could provide. Was he a fool for feeling that way?

“Please,” he called as Leika unsheathed his sword. 

The sorcerer glanced over his shoulder. Their eyes met.

“Be safe,” said Eunso. 

Leika turned away and released his sword. It hovered just off the wall, above the clawing corpses. Leika stepped onto the blade and soared over the sea of bodies, with Sunbe vanishing into a mist, no doubt close behind. 

Moments later, Eunso felt a presence approach his side. 

“He’s not exactly what the stories made him out to be,” said Tashina.

Eunso hummed. “I think you’re right.” 

“He’s a lot weaker than I thought.” 

Eunso turned. He felt the throb of disbelief and defensive anger before he could name the emotions. Tashina glanced at his face and immediately appeared guilty. “Sorry, sir, I just meant...it was kind of a struggle getting to the wall. And the infected here…” 

“This curse has ravaged our kingdom like a flood,” Eunso said harshly. “This is the _first_ time we might be able to save hundreds from the midst of it. You heard what he said, Tashina. Forceful magic is devastating and uncontrollable. He’s being cautious so that no more men and women need to die.”

Tashina looked down. “Sorry, sir. I wasn’t thinking.” 

Three hours later, deep in the night, his men and some guards were gathered atop the wall, holding fires to guide the harrowed survivors who joined them. Three hours later was when Leika and Sunbe arrived with the final cluster of five—a family. The knot of Leika’s hair had come loose, and stray locks frayed in the wind, locks wet with sweat and blood. Blood smeared his clothes. A handprint around his bare forearm. He wore the same expression as always, but the streaks of sweat beneath the firelight seemed to age his face. 

Leika glanced up as Eunso approached. 

“That’s the last of them?” said Eunso.

“Yes. If you would move everyone inside the manor, I will clear out the corpses now.” 

“The wall will hold,” said Eunso. “If you need to rest…”

“ _This_ wall will hold,” said Leika. 

But beyond Narim, the plague still raged. Eunso could not argue with that. 

He instructed the guards to move everyone into the manor, so that if the fire damaged the walls, there would be yet another buffer. Just as Eunso was helping an elderly woman over the manor steps, an explosive boom rumbled through the air, the ground. He caught the woman as she cried and slipped. He glanced over his shoulder.

Light erupted in the night sky, illuminating the outline of the wall, the lone silhouette standing atop. The collective shrieks of the corpses pitched. Light spread around the sides of the wall until the interior appeared as if beneath a warped, dim day. A chain of explosions followed—until, like a crack of thunder straight overhead, even the stone wall itself split. Men and women screamed, clamoring to get inside the safety of the manor. Eunso was swept away with the crowd, and did not see much of what happened afterward. 

Some half hour later, the commotion died down. Some half hour later Eunso found Tashina, and could not resist the urge to lift an eyebrow at the soldier.

“So, _weak_?”

Tashina blinked dumbly. Eunso hurried outside. 

He searched for about a minute before he spotted Leika descending the cracked wall—cracked, but not yet collapsed. Eunso thought he appeared as collected as ever—except, upon closing the distance, he realized he could hear the sorcerer’s breath. Faint, but labored. His footsteps—was Eunso imagining it, or were the sorcerer’s legs shaking?

Eunso reached out a hand on instinct. Leika brushed it aside.

“I sent Sunbe to prepare the ships,” said the sorcerer. “We’ll move the survivors onboard and sweep the rest of the city. There are a few corpses that escaped the fire, but the wards should be set by now. We’ll save who we can and burn the rest.”

“My men and I will handle the transport and the sweep,” said Eunso. “A few corpses should be manageable for us. You will just have to make sure no one infected boards the ships.” 

Leika nodded. “I’ll spell your weapons. We should move now.”

“Are you…” 

Leika suddenly glared at him. “Don’t insult me, general. We move. Now.” 

So they did, escorting the two hundred survivors in two groups. The throng of people drew some corpses along the way, but not the thick, oppressive horde from earlier. Eunso and his men cut them down, managing to reach the docks without any casualties. From the state of the dock, it was clear that at the outset of the attack, several had tried to escape by sea. Bodies littered the wood. Many of the watercrafts were damaged. Two larger merchant ships were intact; so were some smaller ones, but those would not travel quickly enough to get Eunso’s group to the capital in time. 

They loaded half of the group onto the first ship—those heading further south. The others boarded the second ship, which would head north to the neighboring minor kingdom of Ibani. In the meantime, Eunso took some of his men to scour the city for survivors, with Sunbe guiding the way. The guards of Narim searched as well, equipped with flaming swords. This took them the bulk of the night, in the midst of which Miroka joined them with the horses and Eunso’s last two soldiers in two. Jaelim looked as pale as a ghost, but none the worse for wear. 

By dawn, the ships set sail with Eunso’s group aboard the northbound. Flames crawled through the city, leaving Narim a thick cloud of smoke on the horizon. Eunso lingered by the rail on the afterdeck, caught among disbelief, relief, horror, gratitude, and exhaustion. Thousands had died within the span of twenty four hours. Burnt to ash, no bodies for families to grieve. Some of those families were among the survivors now, devastated and broken despite their own survival. 

For many, he thought, it would have been easier to be among the ash.

Someone pushed a bread bun in front of his chest. Eunso pulled his gaze away from the burning city. It was Jaelim. 

“Can’t imagine you’ve eaten since morning. Yesterday morning. Have it, please.” 

Eunso’s stomach growled. He had little appetite, but Jaelim was right. He thanked his friend and forced down one, two bites. The rest became easier to enjoy. Jaelim handed him a flask of water as well—or what Eunso thought was water. He nearly spluttered out the rich wine in surprise. 

“Where did you...”

Jaelim flashed him a smile and pointed toward the front of the ship. The two-story stack of upper cabins blocked the way, but it was where many of the passengers had clustered. Several hung on the afterdeck as well, eyeing Eunso and Jaelim if they had the interest. Most were simply staring blankly ahead, or fast asleep. 

“Girl from the city,” said Jaelim. “Helped her get her parents on board. Think she likes me.” 

Eunso took a draft of the clear wine, enjoying it properly this time. He closed his eyes as he swallowed and savored the burn. “Just what I needed. Heavens. That and a day’s worth of sleep.”

“Can triple that, you know. We won’t be leaving the boat for a while.” Jaelim took the flask back and had a mouthful himself. “Muyen told me about what happened in the city. This sorcerer, think he can really pull off cracking the curse?” 

Eunso frowned. “If he can’t, who can?” 

“Don’t know. It’s just weird, isn’t it? All the stories we’ve been hearing as kids say _he’s_ the biggest, baddest mage alive. But now we’ve got a curse he can’t break. Just burn. I don’t want to end up with a kingdom of ash, Eunso, and I’m worried that’s where we’re headed.” 

Eunso shook his head. “He just needs more time.”

“I hope you’re right.” 

“It’s like Maeri. When we were kids, you remember how she used to be the first to solve any of the old man’s riddles. But there was that one riddle that even stumped her for a couple of days.” He shrugged. “She still got it in the end.”

“Maeri…” Jaelim sighed. “You think she’s doing okay? We left all of a sudden…”

“She’s resourceful. Nothing her muscle-headed brothers can mess with. She’ll be fine.” Eunso lowered his gaze. Was anyone guaranteed to be fine, though? “She’ll be waiting for us, Jae. No doubt.” 

Jaelim nodded. They watched the burning city a little while longer in silence, before the wine soothed Eunso enough toward sleep. He climbed the ladder to the uppermost deck, where the city guards insisted he have the captain’s cabin to himself. It was adjacent to Leika’s cabin, and Eunso had assumed the sorcerer already fast asleep. To his surprise, he found Leika in an isolated corner of the deck, gazing over the rail. 

“Not going to rest?” said Eunso. 

“I am resting,” said the sorcerer. 

Eunso hesitated. “Thank you for what you did today. You saved a lot of lives.” 

The sorcerer didn’t respond. Eunso decided not to disturb him further, and wandered off to his own cabin. He slept deeply from exhaustion, and if he dreamed, he did not remember his dreams. When he woke, it was late afternoon. 

He tiptoed past Leika’s room, assuming again that the sorcerer was asleep. But again, he found Leika outside, this time below on the main deck, reading a book he had packed beneath the sinking sun. He was clean, changed, his knotted hair now braided. Miroka slept at his side. Sunbe was absent. Passengers around the sorcerer and the boy had made generous space, but eyed them with a mixture of awe and fright. 

Eunso scanned the ship. His eyes caught on a glint of auburn atop the roof of the cabin decks. Sunbe. He climbed back up the ladder and heaved himself onto said roof, joining the woman. 

“Hey.”

Sunbe glanced at him and tucked her legs into a more formal position. “Greetings, General Sen.” 

“Just Eunso is fine.” Eunso glanced down at the main deck. At Leika. “Have a feeling your master doesn’t like me very much, so I’m trying not to bother him. But I’ve been meaning to ask—his magic, your magic. How does it work, exactly?” 

“His magic,” said Sunbe. “Miroka and I do not possess magic, not as you use the term.”

“I’ve seen you vanish into thin air. That isn’t magic?”

“That is purely our nature,” said Sunbe. “We are spirits of the natural world. We were bound to Leika by contract, and now we stay with him by choice. We are able to sense the natural conditions around us and to manipulate our own forms, but we cannot create or affect the environment in unnatural ways. That is magic.”

“I see.” Eunso had heard tales of spirits. Fairytales. He’d never met one, but he was past being surprised after all that he’d witnessed. “But it was Miroka who set the wards, no?”

“Leika infuses us with his magic. We may use it as we wish, but it is finite.”

“And his magic is not?”

“His magic is like blood. It is finite as well, but it will replenish through rest. As for how it works—that is complicated. What you call magic is in fact ether. It is a transcendent substance of the world possessed by the gifted, by which they can connect with the physical world and manifest the concepts of their mind into a physical reality. Raw ether is forceful and destructive. It merely consumes the physical world, like the fire you witnessed. Refined ether requires the mind to craft the desired concept with care, and it can only be channeled in limited doses at a time.” 

That seemed somewhat similar to the teachings of the court enchanters. Magic, they said, was a limited craft best used for preemptive enhancement and modification. It was rarely a tool of direct combat, for it sapped one’s reserves too quickly. 

“This curse, then,” said Eunso. “How do you think it came about?”

“I do not know,” said Sunbe. “If I were to guess, a sorcerer of great malice and knowledge constructed the concept to oppress this land. Surely Puan has enemies. Or perhaps their motives are more complex. It is too early to say.” 

“A sorcerer that can rival Leika, you think?”

“It is possible. There are not many who can. But they exist.” 

“All my life, I’ve only heard tales of him. The infamous Lord Rohe.” Eunso gazed down at said sorcerer now, who shifted as Miroka stirred, who ran his fingers gently through the boy’s hair—the _spirit’s_ hair—and soothed him back to sleep. “They say terrible things about him, you know. But ever since Narim, I’ve been wondering just how much of the stories are true.” 

“You are asking me.”

“I imagine you’d know. You said you were bound to him by contract. Now you stay by choice.” 

Sunbe turned to Eunso. Her gaze was untelling. After a moment, she looked away again, watching over Leika as she had been since Eunso saw her. “Humans tell tales to explain that which they do not understand. Their imaginations are grand, but also limited when the canvas is merely blank. There are difficult truths. There are difficult lies. If he does not wish for you to know the difference, that is his choice. So you should ask him, Eunso. Not me.” 

Sunbe stood up. 

“Excuse me, Eunso. I should again attempt to persuade him to sleep.” 

Eunso rose as well, frowning. “He hasn’t rested yet?” 

“No. He is stubborn.” 

With that, Sunbe hopped off the roof. Eunso watched as she approached Leika, knelt by his side and spoke with him. Leika simply shook his head, his lips moving in a short response. 

Afternoon became evening. Evening became night. Still Eunso did not see Leika retire to his room. The next morning, when he asked Sunbe if the sorcerer had finally slept, she replied that he had not. 

Leika was on the upper cabin deck that morning, brushing his hair with a pearled comb. He sat with his back to the rail, his eyes cast upon the floor, neither of his companions in sight. He seemed not to notice Eunso until Eunso sat down beside him. And then he looked up—and he looked, like any human man, tired. Shadows had formed beneath his eyes, sapping away at his unworldly beauty. 

Eunso held out a flask. “It’s rice wine. Do you drink?”

“No,” Leika said simply. 

“Try it. It should help you with sleep.” 

“There is no need.” 

Eunso twisted open the cap and held the flask toward the sorcerer. “Please. For us.”

Leika chuckled tiredly. “For _you_? Just drink it yourself.” 

“You need to rest,” said Eunso. “Sunbe tells me you haven’t been sleeping. This ship will reach the northlands in two days, and the path to the capital from there is thickly infested. We need you at your best if we are to survive—”

“Ah. So this is about keeping your carriage wheels oiled.”

Eunso frowned. “Do you mean to say I see you as a carriage? _You_ are at risk too if you’re not rested.”

“You talk like I’m a stubborn child. That is insulting.” 

“I’m worried about you. Is that—” 

The flask of wine flew out of his hand. Leika had slapped it away. The rich liquid spilled over the wood, seeping through the cracks of the boards, onto the deck below. 

Leika stood and gazed coldly down. “Your concern is unnecessary and unwanted. Now, if you’ve nothing better to do, then please at least keep to your own men.”

The sorcerer left. Eunso stared after him, numb with shock and disappointment. 

He kept his distance from Leika for the rest of the day. He did persuade the women on the ship to trade him another bottle of rice wine, though—sweetened this time, like the faint scent that had occupied Leika’s bookroom, bedroom, and body. He gave the wine to Sunbe and did not ask what she did with it. 

Night came again. Eunso retired to his room. He was beginning to drift when he heard footsteps. The adjacent door opening. Nothing was soundproof here, and every echo was crystalline—the shifting of fabric, the creak of the boards, the soft, tired sigh. Perhaps a lion purred. 

Soon, all was quiet.

Eunso breathed, feeling as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He too fell asleep. 

But a thunderstrike woke him. 

Smoke sizzled the air. A scream tore through his startled haze—pitched, awful, unrecognizable. Eunso jolted upright, thinking he was buried in an infected city in the depths of a nightmare—except he recognized the cabin of the ship. He recognized the clarity of consciousness. He blinked and saw scorch marks on his wall, the one dividing his cabin from Leika’s. Cracks in the wood, a gust of wind away from coming apart.

Had the curse made its way here? No. No, it couldn’t have.

Eunso scrambled for his sword as clamor echoed from the adjacent room. Sunbe’s voice was quickly speaking in a language he did not understand. He’d no sooner grabbed the hilt of his weapon than a second cry rang out, softer than the first. Not a scream this time. A sob. Who?

It couldn’t be.

Eunso staggered upright and hurried outside. He ignored the stirring below and grasped for the adjacent cabin door. He shoved it open with his blade drawn, his chest hammering. And he froze. 

Fire licked the shattered desk and stool of the room. Fire illuminated the three silhouettes on the bed. Miroka clutched his hand. Sunbe cupped his face. Leika appeared as if he had just woken from a nightmare, his expression for once utterly unguarded. His cheeks were—moist. Painted by the unmistakable track of tears. 

Leika looked up. He locked eyes with Eunso. 

Some gaunt, awful expression crossed the sorcerer’s face. For one instant—and then Eunso found himself thrown back. His body smashed against the wooden deck rail—broke it. He tumbled onto the main deck below, pain shooting through his body. The passengers resting there gasped in surprise—then screamed in fright. A shadow jumped down and loomed over him. 

Not a human shadow. A beastly creature with human limbs, but a fanged, feline head and lethal claws, with a coat of black and eyes pure emerald. Dark mist blurred the contours of its form, which stood menacingly down over Eunso. This shadow spoke in a consuming echo of Miroka’s voice. 

“Keep your distance, human. I will not warn you again.” 

With that, the shadow vanished. 

The crowd on the deck whispered in terror. Hands pulled and patted at Eunso, tugging him upright, checking for broken bones. Voices echoed in his ear, asking him if he was alright, wondering if they were in danger. He didn’t process any of it.

All he could think about were the tears on Leika’s face, glistening beneath the embers of a nightmare.


	8. 7

**_Leika_ **

* * *

Ghostly shivers wracked his body, slow to rouse from the depths of sleep. Fifty-eight years. Fifty-eight years and all the spellwork of the known world, and still, that dream stayed vivid. Were it not for Eunso’s jarring appearance, the humiliation of being seen like this, his nightmare would have him in its clutches for longer yet, crying like a beaten child. He caught his tears now at least. 

Sunbe cupped his cheek. Her whispers soothed his ear, fading as his shivers calmed. In his peripheral, Miro returned from beyond the cabin and knelt at Leika’s side in his child form. 

“Leika? Are you back?” 

Leika took an unsteady breath. His next one was smoother. He opened his eyes and waved his hand, snuffing the fires from the room. 

“I said this would happen. Did I not?” 

“You’ve been so tired,” murmured Sunbe. “How were we supposed to bear your exhaustion when the risk was so low? It’s been twenty-seven years since you last dreamt.”

“It’s  _ them _ ,” snapped Miro. “If those disruptive humans would just vanish into the sea…” 

“That’s enough.” Leika glanced at his spirits. Miro appeared unscathed, but he had recently transformed. Sunbe, her clothes were blackened and torn, revealing patches of her pale skin. No visible blood, but Leika could smell the copper among the ash. “How bad was it?”

Sunbe shook her head. “Nothing to be concerned about. Your ether was...weaker than usual.” 

“And the general? Is  _ he  _ hurt? I heard him fall off the rail.” 

“At worst he broke a few bones,” said Miro. “He will live.”

Leika frowned.

“What?” said Miro. “He intruded. He had no right.” 

“He had no ill intent either.” Leika took Sunbe’s hand. Opening their channel, he poured a reserve of ether into her spirit. “Check that he hasn’t broken anything important. Don’t let him see you.” 

Sunbe nodded and vanished. Miro crawled onto the bed and pouted. 

“If it were anyone else, you would have dropped them yourself,” said the little spirit. 

“If it were anyone else,” said Leika, “they would never have touched my door.”

“Ah, so you  _ reward  _ idiocy now?” 

“I need him intact.” 

Leika stood up and removed his scorched shirt. It was not only his shirt which had been scorched. The sheets, the bed, the wall—streaks of black wrended the wood like a burning claw, just a breath away from ripping through and destroying what would have laid on the other side. He tried not to think about it. He conjured a light for the shattered lamp and sifted through his belongings for a change of clothes. He could feel the boy’s eyes on him. 

“You think he’s special,” Miro said at last.

“I do not,” said Leika. “I think he’s useful.” 

Miro hopped over to the broken table, beneath which Leika’s bag was tucked. He could feel those eyes piercing through his veil of hair. Then Miro swept back said veil and touched Leika’s chin, guiding his gaze so that their eyes met. 

“Is that honest?” said Miro. 

Leika lidded his eyes, displeased with the questioning. So he elected not to respond. He pushed aside Miro’s hand and pulled out a fresh shirt from the bag, ignoring the plastered eyes as he dressed. Outside, the clamor was finally beginning to fade. He returned to the bed and sat his tired body upon its scorched sheets, resolved to meditate until morning. Or however long he could last. 

Miro soon joined him with a book in his lap.

“Would you like me to read to you?”

Leika peered at the boy. Miro looked apologetic. 

Leika sighed. “That would be lovely. Thank you.”

So Miro began to read. Sunbe soon returned, reporting that Eunso was well before she curled in her fox form beside Leika. Leika drifted, listening to the words of the old storybook to keep himself awake, listening for any noises next door. It was silent. Eunso did not return for the night. 

Morning came slowly. In daylight, at least, it was easier to stay conscious. He kept himself indoors for much of it, gazing out the window at the vast sea, avoiding the faces outside who would either stare too long or shrink away in fright. Avoiding the general, whose shocked face lingered in Leika’s mind. 

In many ways, it was foolish. That man had come with his sword drawn, as if he’d tackle whatever beast had elicited Leika’s screams. Fight against a thing that overwhelmed a sorcerer and his spirits—what a ridiculous thought. Anyone with a clearer head and sharper logic would have known to stay away. Either the sorcerer’s opponent or the sorcerer himself would have an intruder dead in seconds. He  _ could  _ have broken his neck from the fall.

But thoughts were deliberate, practiced things. Instincts revealed far more about a man. 

Come night again, when the passengers slept, Leika left his cabin and climbed atop the roof to be alone. The moon was full. The sea was gentle. Nature had been all their journey, even if the manmade horrors had not. This was the last night they would be upon the ship, so he wished to enjoy the rolling, expansive peace. Some things, after all, could simply not be had in the cloister of his mistwood forest.

He was interrupted by footsteps on the upper deck. A soft grunt. A shadow in his peripheral. 

He sighed. 

“Did Miro not warn you to keep your distance?” 

Eunso sat down a fair space away. “Is this enough distance?” 

Leika frowned at him. Just as he turned, Eunso tossed him a flask. Leika caught it by instinct.

“That’s the last of the wine,” said Eunso. “Last I’ll be able to get, at least. So please don’t spill it this time.” 

Leika lowered the flask to his lap. “If you want to pry about last night, I have nothing to say to you.”

“No, that’s not why I’m here.”

“Then I can’t imagine why you’re here.”

“I want to apologize.” 

Leika scoffed softly. Apologies would not make the general unseen what he had seen. And what was the point? Eunso was not the one at fault, much as Leika would like someone to blame for his own discomfort. 

“I should not have presumed,” Eunso said softly. “I should have realized there was a reason you would not sleep. And still, I pressed you with the danger in the north. It was not my intent to make you feel like a blade that must be whetted, Leika. I’m sorry.” 

Leika paused. 

He  _ was  _ a blade that must be whetted. He was a tool purchased at a prize of unrestricted value to resolve this curse. Their relationship was a transaction. Little else. 

He kept his tone neutral. “Then, since you’ve apologized, will you leave?” 

Eunso did not answer. In Leika’s peripheral, he moved to the edge of the roof. So he would leave. 

Leika gazed at the moon. 

“Staying awake is easier with company,” said Eunso.

Leika glanced over. The general’s legs swung over the edge of the roof, but his body sat comfortably planted. He had opened his own flask of drink and took a deep draft. In the moonlight, the curves of his throat moved beneath a ghostly bronze sheen. Leika quickly looked away as the general lowered his flask. 

A long moment passed. Or perhaps they were moments, each discrete but softly blended, as his reservation faded to indifference, dissolved into acceptance, settled into something akin to comfort. Miro saw Eunso as no different from the others, but Leika did not feel the same aversion. He had not felt this aversion since the general stalled his blade in the bookroom, and fell to his knees, and begged for a kindness that Leika had sworn to dust. 

_ You think he’s special _ .

But no. He was human. And like all men, malleable, vulnerable, capricious. Perhaps. 

Leika lifted the flask in his lap and removed the cap. He sipped at the wine. As with the one offered by Sunbe, honey underlaid the fermented liquid, a small pleasure in this exhausting place. 

“When we dock,” Leika said, “we may find shelter and rest for a time. Then I will be as before.” 

“We will, then.” 

Eunso quieted. Leika sensed that he wanted to continue. But he did not.

After a moment, Leika spoke again. 

“It is the people,” he explained. He was not sure why he bothered. Perhaps to fill the silence. “The mind does not maintain the same barriers it does in consciousness. You rest. You replenish. But my ether does more. It connects.”

“Connects?”

“With their fears and nightmares. There is no way to prevent it when I sleep. Or perhaps there is, but I’ve yet to uncover it.” He sighed. “It seems to be a problem unique to me, as far as I am aware. You would recall you rested dreamlessly in my manor. That is because your meals were drugged, so you would not disturb my rest with your fright.” 

“I see.” A pause. “You dream their dreams? Ours?”

“No. I dream my own. Yours merely determine which.” Leika sipped the wine again. He savored the bitter honey a little more slowly this time. “I can’t control my ether when I dream. I have never been able to. And far worse has happened than some fire in a cabin. So you understand my stubbornness.”

“You’re worried about hurting us.” 

Leika paused with the flask at his lips. In pure practical words, he  _ was  _ concerned about the ship becoming destroyed. But that tone…

He lowered the flask and arched an eyebrow at his company. “I am not what you think I am, general.”

Eunso tilted his head. “You know what I think?” 

Leika expanded his cognizance, grazing the warm pulse beside him. Not so close beside him, but the heat radiating from that spirit felt only a breath away. He was momentarily struck by the softness. But he ventured no further than the contours. 

“You make little effort to hide your thoughts,” he said eventually, withdrawing. “And I could pry, I suppose, but I won’t. I just don’t want for you to be mistaken. I am not a good person.” 

“Neither am I,” said Eunso. 

Leika frowned at the man. Eunso smiled.

“Goodness is an unachievable state for those who seek it. We can only be better than we once were.”

“I’m not…” Leika trailed off. Sighed. “Think what you will, general. It will not matter in the long run.”

He lifted his flask again. Eunso did the same. 

The night thereon was mostly quiet. Before Leika had felt the hours, dawn came. 

They reached a northern port by mid-morning, a barren port two days’ ride from the capital, where Leika’s party disembarked at last. The village that hosted this port had been struck by the plague weeks ago: the blood and gore had dried, or else was infested with thriving maggots. Not a soul was left in sight. Because the village made for a disturbing place to rest, Eunso led the group into the nearby woodlands until they reached a secure clearing. His men seemed confused about why they were stopping so soon, so he insisted that the rest was for those who had been seasick, like himself. It didn’t appear that they believed him. But regardless, Leika was afforded a quiet corner to sleep. 

He rested well. The soldiers intruded on his dreams, but it was not overbearing enough to elicit the old nightmare. He woke near dusk, replenished for the journey ahead. 

They fed on an evening meal of woodland hunt, then continued on the way. Night fell. 

With Leika’s sensory magic, they could navigate the rest of the path to the capital while avoiding the strays of the curse. The next leg of their travels was uneventful, except for the occasional grotesque image of the villages they passed. These did not sit well with Leika, who was reminded too vividly of what once was Nazora. In truth, he could not have been called out of his peaceful woods for a worse experience. The massacred villages. The burning corpses. The mutilated bodies. If he did not know better, then he would have thought divinity devised this scenario to torture him. 

Dawn came. They stopped for a brief rest before continuing on their way, making up for lost time. At dusk, they found an abandoned farm in a village outskirt, decent enough to sleep in. Leika took the tools shed with his spirits, which was a fair distance away from the main house and barnyard where the soldiers slept. He dreamt of—horrifically, but not dangerously—the first months he drifted alone after Daeron’s death. He dreamt of camping in a farm just like this, until a shadow in the night disturbed his rest. A spike of sudden fear cut through his sleep. 

Miro shook him awake. 

“Leika. Leika!” 

He opened his eyes, his heart pounding. His consciousness was slow to retract—so he felt it still, that abnormal, petrified terror of a soldier. It was coming from the main house. And thick around it was the dark magic of the curse. 

He looked around. Sunbe was missing—gone ahead, no doubt. He hurried out of the shed as well with Miro close behind. He was halfway across the yard when the dark magic vanished. 

The soldiers had woken, filling the air with nervous clamor. When Leika rounded the corner of the main house, he saw five men clustered outside, near the lavatory. Eunso was just exiting from the house door. He pushed past his soldiers, saw what they were looking at, and then dropped to his knees with a cry.

“Jae!” 

Leika approached. The soldiers noticed him and quickly made way, revealing a rotten beheaded corpse, Sunbe, and the two men on the ground. Eunso held the arm of a pale, trembling Jaelim. Blood thickened the air. It was not a grave injury—just a crimson hand that quivered like a leaf. It had been bitten. 

“Shit,” whispered the plump soldier, his eyes glistening with tears. “Shit, shit, shit.” 

“What happened?” said Eunso.

“I was just—I was just taking a piss, and it just—it came out of nowhere and—shit!”

Leika knelt beside the general. How the curse had come this close and escaped his spirits’ sensory range, he did not know. But the implications of the tale could be dealt with later. He took the soldier’s hand expressionlessly, feeling warm blood and cold skin beneath his fingertips. His ether linked with the open wound, tasting faint traces of the dark magic. Faint, but rapidly growing. 

“It’s infected,” he announced. 

Eunso grabbed Leika’s arm. Leika didn’t want to look at the general, so he lowered his gaze to the hand digging into his sleeve. 

“There has to be something we can do,” said Eunso. He did not sound like himself. “We can cut off the arm. We can cleanse his blood. Leika, there has to be  _ something _ —” 

“A curse is not of the body,” said Leika. “It is of the soul. You could remove everything but his head and it would still claim him.” 

Quiet. 

“No,” whispered Jaelim again. “I don’t—I don’t want to die like that.”

Eunso grabbed his friend’s bloody hand. The wound pressed against his bare palm, contact far too direct. The curse would spread. Leika reached over and tried to pull the general away, but Eunso knocked him off. Leika’s hand hovered in the air, stinging from the abrasion. 

“You won’t,” said Eunso. “We’ll figure something out. You hear me?” 

Jaelim shook his head, crying in earnest now. He choked back some tears and looked at Leika. “How long do I have?”

“My best guess is three hours,” said Leika. “Perhaps four.” 

They stared at him.

“Four hours,” whispered Jaelim. He looked at Eunso. “Do you—do you think we could make it to the capital in time? So I can see her again. Or—or do you think it’d be too dangerous?”

“Fuck!” said Eunso. 

He turned to Leika. And because Leika still would not look at him, Eunso grabbed Leika’s shirt. Miro hissed and lunged forward, shoving the general with disproportionate force, sending him sprawling in the dirt. But Eunso crawled back as if nothing had happened and grabbed for Leika again. Leika held out an arm to stop his spirit, letting Eunso wrend bloody trails in his shirt and shake his body. He finally met the general’s eyes, which were not like Leika had ever seen them. Desperate. Afraid. 

For some foolish reason, Leika’s chest hurt. 

“You said minutes was not enough,” said Eunso. “You have four hours. Please, you can save him. I offered you anything,  _ anything _ . Save him.”

How easy it would have been to say  _ I can’t.  _

After all, the general did not understand the complexity of this spellwork. Because if he did, he would not ask. He would begin riding now to the capital to fulfill his friend’s last wish. And Leika should have quickly told him as much.

In his pause, Miro stepped forward. “ _ Leika _ .” 

Leika sighed. He grasped the general’s hands and pried them from his shirt. He stood, dusting the dirt from his knees. 

“Sunbe, Miro. Keep watch here.”

Miro vanished. Reappeared in Leika’s path. The spirit spoke in old Azukan, a language the soldiers would not understand. ‘You are thinking recklessly. This spellwork must be deconstructed systemically, in a controlled environment,  _ not  _ by force—’

‘He paid me for this,’ said Leika. ‘Or he will.’

‘He cannot afford you!’

Eunso pushed upright. “What is the—”

Leika held out a hand, keeping the general back from the spirit. “Miro prefers to ride with me, it seems. Then Sunbe, I leave them in your care.”

Sunbe bowed her head.

“Where are you going?” said Eunso. 

“Nowhere you will follow,” said Leika. He arched an eyebrow at Miro. ‘Then? Can  _ I  _ at least afford  _ you _ ?’ 

The boy scowled. After shooting a glare at Eunso, he stepped back and morphed into his lioness. The soldiers shouted and scattered in fright, giving space for Leika to swing over Miro’s back. He turned to Eunso.

“I suggest you begin riding for the capital, as your friend requests. But if you choose to wait here for me, general—then be the consequences on your head.”

Without waiting for a response, Leika tapped Miro’s shoulder and rode off into the night. 


	9. 8

**_Eunso_ **

* * *

Every soldier rode into war knowing that he might die. But few were prepared to face the reality. 

Eunso had lost men before. Friends. Family. He was familiar with the cycle of grief, if not ever accustomed to its cruelty. When he rode out from the capital weeks ago, into the thick of the plague, with Jaelim at his side, he knew that one or both could be riding out for the last time. But how was he supposed to face the reality?

They grew up together, in the intermixed streets of the capital. Jaelim was a nobleman’s son. Eunso was a seamstress’s child. All he had to do was take a beating from the other noblemen’s boys, the ones who had yet to outgrow their childish malice and bullied the weak among their lot. Jaelim had been by his side ever since. He was the reason Eunso met a martial master to teach him the way of the blade, the reason Eunso was accepted to the highlord’s militia academy, the reason his mother stopped living in poverty. He was the reason Eunso remembered, despite the poisonous politics and consuming power games, despite the incentives to trick and trade and to climb and crush, that the worthy things in this world came from acts of kindness.

He knew his best friend was as mortal as anyone. But how was he supposed to fathom losing him?

Jaelim asked him for a horse. Eunso refused. He insisted that Leika would be back before dawn, so Jaelim need only wait in the shed. He instructed the rest of his men to remain in the house. And though it pained him to do so, he sat a distance away from his brother, in the opposite corner of the shed, counting the hours because Jaelim didn’t want to talk. Eunso was left staring at this hunched form, with Sunbe standing not far away. 

Never before this plague had he felt so helpless. 

Moments passed in silence. At last he could bear the quiet no longer.

“What language was it?” he said to break the silence. “The one Miroka used earlier.” 

Sunbe peered down at him. She took a cross-legged seat across the doorway before answering. 

“A tribal tongue of the Azukan Mountains,” said Sunbe. “A land far north of here.”

“Is that where you are all from?” 

“Not I. It is Miroka’s place of origin and Leika’s place of birth. I am from the Rohenan Wilds.”

Jaelim stirred a little bit. Perhaps he preferred silence. Or perhaps he was curious. Maybe these words served as a worthwhile distraction. Eunso went with the latter. 

“The Rohenan Wilds? Of Old Puan? I thought that was a fairytale.” 

“The Wilds have been lost for centuries now,” said Sunbe, “but they were once a real place in these lands. As were the twin brothers of legend who survived its devastation, Ilheo and Daeron of the Rohe.”

“Rohe? As in Lord Rohe?” 

“Yes,” said Sunbe. “Leika was married to the younger brother.”

“You said the Wilds had been lost for centuries…”

“The brothers were sorcerers. Immortal under the etheral blessing, but only to the passage of time. They are both dead now.” 

Eunso’s gaze drifted back to Jaelim. The talk of death—it wasn’t suitable for the moment. He had wanted to avoid talk of the curse as well, but Sunbe’s words had reminded him of a sobering fact. Leika was no god who could pluck the cure out of his own palm. He had to find it. And he would—Eunso could not doubt this—but how? How did he mean to do it?

“What was Miroka arguing with Leika about?” he asked at last. 

Sunbe paused. “He did not speak in your tongue because he did not think it necessary for you to understand.” 

“I’m asking you now. I think I have a right, don’t I? We’ve chosen to wait here.”

“Choosing to stay does not give you the right,” said Sunbe, “but perhaps demanding that he go obligates you the burden.” 

Eunso frowned. Sunbe continued after a moment. 

“The etheral connection is invoked by the ability of the consciousness. One must envision fire to create fire. But enchantments and curses are no simple fires. Rather, they are finely woven tapestries. The more complex the curse, the more layers within the tapestry. To lift a curse, one must undo each layer, each weave, taking care not to entangle oneself or to leave an irreparable mess. And for a curse of this caliber, the safest manner of deconstruction is work through it layer by layer, beginning with the outermost, with a considerable supply of subjects.”

“That…can’t be done in four hours, can it?” Eunso said softly, realizing. “The safest manner...that’s what they were arguing about. Leika—is he in danger? Did I...”

“Did you ask the unreasonable?” said Sunbe. “Very much so. The only way to unravel this curse in under four hours is by force. From the inside out.” 

Eunso sat upright. In his peripheral, Jaelim turned. “What does that mean? What is he doing?”

“From the inside out,” Sunbe repeated. “He means to infect himself.” 

Eunso stared at the woman. She was calm. So it must mean that her words were not as horrific as they sounded. It must mean that Leika couldn’t succumb to the curse and become one of those mindless corpses.

“The infection can’t take him,” said Eunso. “Right?”

“One should hope. Whether or not that is possible depends on the nature of the curse.” 

“But he—he wouldn’t risk his life for this. He’s only here because he’s promised any payment…”

Sunbe turned to him. Her eyes, indifferent before, now pinned him with a scathing cold. “If that is what you really believe, then I was mistaken about you.” When Eunso looked away, Sunbe sighed and faced the far wall again. She spoke more softly next. “As for lives, you would have to treasure yours to fear risking it. And if you can give him a reason to do so, Eunso, then you would have made your payment many times over.” 

He looked up. Sunbe met his gaze for a deliberate moment.

Was he interpreting her words correctly? Or had something been lost among the vagaries?

Just then, Jaelim coughed. Eunso dropped thoughts of the sorcerer and started toward his friend, only to be stopped by a hand on his shoulder, another hand outstretched, barring him from approach. 

“S-stay back. Think I’m...think I’m getting more infectious.”

“Jae—”

“Please, Eunso. Know you think he’s gonna make it back and we’re all gonna be fine, but if I—” another cough “—if I bring you down with me, I’ll get the shittiest room in hell, I know I will. So just...just don’t screw up my afterlife, okay?” 

The humor didn’t reach Eunso, whose felt as if his teeth might shatter from the pressure. The court called Jaelim a coward—but hells, if any of them were in his shoes now, they couldn’t muster a fraction of his courage. It killed him to see his friend fear so much and try so hard. Whoever did this—whoever cast this curse—he was going to put them through the hell that Jaelim feared. It would be done, even if it was the last thing he did. 

He rammed a fist into the dirt ground, because courage aside, Jaelim was right. Even if Eunso lost every last person he loved, he could not simply go with them. “Damn it!”

“Think it’s best if you wait outside.” A pause. “Sun-Sunbe, Can you take him outside?” 

Sunbe stood and began to tug Eunso upright. He let her. 

Jaelim broke into another fit of coughs. Eunso had seen how this went. First was the lungs. Next was the fever. Then came the inflammation of the brain, hallucinations, madness. Some bled through the body as their organs failed within. It was the same end for everyone—a brief moment of quiet death, and then the cruel revival of the curse. 

“You’re going to hold out,” he said quietly. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll...I’ll let you know if it starts getting bad.”

Eunso nodded and left the shed. Sunbe closed the door behind them. He turned—and spotted the soldiers gathered just outside. They began standing up to greet him.

“I ordered you to wait in the house,” said Eunso.

“We didn’t think you’d be too offended if we camped out here,” said Muyen. “We want to be here, sir. For our brother.” 

The others nodded. They were all here. 

Eunso paused. Then he slapped a heavy palm against the shed door.

“You hear that, Jae?” he called out. “Your brothers are out here waiting for you to be our first recovery. Don’t you go letting us down. Do you hear me?” 

There was quiet.

Then, in a voice thickened with tears, Jaelim called back, “Yes, sir!”

Eunso closed his eyes. He walked to the side of the shed, near where Jaelim was huddled, and sat with his back to the wall. His men resumed their seats as well. It was Ruomi, the one who had been injured and then revived during their manor stay, who eventually hummed a fireside warsong to fill the quiet. The others joined in softly, loud enough to be heard by Jaelim, not loud enough to attract nearby strays. 

They had started off as a party of twenty. Eunso, and sixteen of his hand-picked men from his personal capital division, plus three others attached by Sun Senkim, Lord Akugal’s firstborn and heir to the Lordship. Those three had derailed him one week out from the capital, resulting in their deaths and the loss of two other men. Eunso’s men, good men, friends who had been with him for years. He had lost four more to the plague before he reached Leika’s mistwood forest, including a boy who had just turned twenty—a promising boy, one who told Eunso he had joined the capital academy with the hope of fighting beside him one day. His hope came came true, but Eunso knew that in the boy’s final moments, he felt no such satisfaction. Just pain. 

All this time, Eunso told himself their sacrifice would not be for nothing. Like the soldiers fallen in the wars they had waged and won—their sacrifice was not for nothing. If Jaelim died tonight, he would have to tell himself the same thing. But it would start to feel like a lie. 

His men knew too. If Jaelim died tonight, Eunso wasn’t losing another soldier. He was losing a limb. And a general without a limb was...well, weak. 

He leaned his head against the wall as the song fell into quiet. Coughs echoed from the other side.

It took them a while to die down.

“Eunso,” came the muffled voice. “‘So, you there?” 

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“I’ve...I’ve got something to ask you. You know, in case I don’t—”

“You remember the time Senkim gave me a royal order to retrieve his stupid cat?” said Eunso. “From the Old Forest?” 

A pause. A soft snort. “What royal order? Everyone knows he was trying to get you killed during Blood Season.”

“Yeah, well, I’m talking about the after. When I was missing some guts and you were missing about half the water in your body. Got to say, Jae, don’t think I’ve _ever_ seen anyone cry as much as you did.” 

Jaelim chuckled, and coughed, and cleared his throat. “Yeah, don’t think I’d ever seen anyone bleed as much as you did. Guess that’s changed though.” 

“You knew I was going to die,” said Eunso. “ _I_ knew I was going to die. And you remember what Maeri said?” 

“I remember she poured a pot of tea on my head and slapped you in the face.” 

Eunso chuckled. “Yeah. ‘Death’s a damn persistent lover, but he’s got some courtesy too.’ So you have to tell him no. Just keep telling him no.” 

Jaelim sighed. “Ah, Maeri…” 

Eunso smiled. “You remember the first time she came down to talk to us? At the Academy?”

“Oh hells,” muttered Jaelim. “Couldn’t forget if I tried. And you can bet your balls I’ve tried.” 

So they talked about that. And they visited other memories as well, passing the long wait for Leika’s return. But the more they reminisced, the more the curse progressed. The coughs came more frequently, interrupting their conversation. Soon the facade of what they were doing became too apparent with the constant fits. Eunso did not want to irritate the pain, so he stopped asking questions. Just talked. Every so often, Jaelim would mumble something in response. Every so often, Eunso would run out of things to say, and he’d hear a whimper from the other side of the wall. The others drifted by too, trying to encourage their brother to stay strong. But the internal damage progressed. The minutes ticked on. 

Eunso didn’t know how many hours had passed before Jaelim began sobbing incoherently. He paced beside the shed because he couldn’t go inside, his chest ripping into shreds as his friend screamed in pain. No shadows approached on the horizon. Then an awful screech echoed in to the shed, followed by a thump—

His heart dropped. He ran for the door.

Sunbe caught him. He was shoving her away when he heard Jaelim sob his name. 

He was still there. 

Eunso turned to Sunbe and grabbed her arms. “Where is he? He should be back by now? Sunbe, where _is_ he?” 

“I do not know,” she said. “I cannot sense him yet, so at least a half-league away.” 

“Fuck!” 

Eunso hurried back to the shed and pounded on the wall. “Jae! Jae, hold on. He’s coming, I swear to heaven he’s coming. Just hold on!” 

A pained moaned was the only response. 

Minutes passed. The moans dissolved into low, rasping groans, weak, on the verge of death. The men had stood, tenser than ever, Ruomi already in tears. Eunso had run out of words to say. He pressed his head against the wall, listening to his best friend die, trying desperately to keep it together, hold onto hope. It was slipping fast. 

Then Sunbe grasped his shoulder. He turned. 

“He’s coming,” she said, her eyes alight. “He’s riding to us now.” 

Eunso felt the air fill his lungs again. He turned and swept his gaze across the horizon—and there, surely, was the silhouette of a rider. It couldn’t come fast enough. 

By the time Leika reached the farm, Jaelim had quieted behind the shed. The soldiers quickly made way for the lioness and its rider. Paces away from the shed, Leika swung off and made straight for its door. Eunso stared, aghast. He was covered in blood. The moonlight illuminated splatters and streaks of near black across his face, his throat, his arms and hands—across the patches of skin exposed through his torn clothes. His trousers were ripped down the left thigh and calf. His jacket was missing, and his shirt was in shreds. Wetness plastered the fabric to his skin—plastered his loose hair, in clumps. He glanced at Eunso, his face betraying nothing, and then he vanished inside the shed. 

Behind him, the lioness resumed its shape as the boy Miroka. Emerald eyes pinned Eunso with scathing hate. But Eunso ignored him and followed Leika into the shed. 

Jaelim laid near a puddle of bloody vomit. Though it seeped through his nostrils and painted his lips, Jaelim was now barely moving, in fevered sleep like the boy in the Narim manor. Leika knelt beside him and cupped his face. 

“Can you save him?” said Eunso. 

Leika didn’t respond. He only leaned down and kissed Jaelim’s mouth. Eunso stared in numb, overwhelmed shock, comprehending slowly that it must be a requirement of the spellwork. But it did look like a kiss—long, slow, and sensual as Leika closed his eyes and held the other man’s head gently. 

Sunbe knelt beside Eunso. Perhaps answering his earlier question, she said quietly, “The quickest way to break a curse is from the inside out. He is reaching the heart of your friend’s curse by merging their two souls. Do not worry. He will live now.” 

Eunso exhaled in relief. Moments later, Jaelim made a muffled noise. He grasped at Leika’s hands. Leika did not let go, and soon Jaelim’s hold relaxed. But he was conscious now, knees drawing up as he whimpered in pain. It must have been near ten minutes later when Leika finally drew back. Weakly, Jaelim opened his tear-filled eyes.

“He needs healing,” Leika said. His voice was different, tired. 

Sunbe moved forward. Leika stepped away—left the shed. Eunso wanted to follow, but he couldn’t leave Jaelim. So he moved to his friend’s side as Sunbe laid her hand over his chest, presumably healing his internal wounds. It must hurt, because Jaelim clasped a hand over his eyes and shuddered with suppressed sobs. 

But when Sunbe withdrew, he did not stop crying. 

“I have done what I can,” said Sunbe. “My magic is exhausted now. He will need rest to recover, and perhaps Leika will be amenable to healing the remainder come morning.”

“Thank you, Sunbe,” said Eunso.

She nodded. “I must tend to Leika now. We will see you at dawn.”

Before he could respond, she vanished into mist. 

Eunso turned back to Jaelim and held his shoulder. All around him, the other men were trickling inside, staring in disbelief, relief, hope. The same staggered his own heart.

Leika had broken the curse. Even if only for one person, he had done it. 

“Jae?” whispered Eunso. “Jae. Jae, you made it.”

Jaelim sobbed, no longer smothering the sound. He clasped both hands over his face now, his shoulders wracking beneath Eunso’s touch. This—this no longer seemed like physical pain. 

Eunso frowned.

“Jae?” 

“I can’t stop crying,” Jaelim gasped through the tears. “I don’t know why I can’t stop crying.”

Eunso was quiet. He sank his weight to the floor and withdrew his hand.

Jaelim slammed a fist against his chest, over and over, like he was trying to beat the pain out of it. 

“Why does it hurt so much? Why does my heart hurt so much?” 

Eunso looked at the ground. A merging of the souls? A stag with golden eyes.

 _Because,_ he thought, _it’s not your heart._


	10. 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO sorry about the delay--the semester started and I've been caught up with law school work (which obviously has to take priority) and other shit. If it counts for anything, I did totally squeeze out my time to get this chapter up for my lovely readers (you, yes you) when I was very tempted to just shut my brain off and sleep.

**_Eunso_ **

* * *

Dawn arrived.

Eunso was not roused by restfulness, but by the nagging sun come too soon. His eyelids felt like iron as he dragged them open, wincing from the light and the ache of exhaustion. But as soon as he saw the barren farm field, memories of the past night returned. The notion of further sleep vanished. He groaned softly and rubbed his face, looking about to reorient himself.

He was at the entrance to the farm barn. Tucked within the barn, sheltered from the light, Jaelim was snoring deeply. They had moved here from the vomit and blood infested shed shortly after Jaelim had been cured—cured, but not fully healed. Sunbe had done as much as she could, but Jaelim had a way to go before full recovery. He’d need rest, she said. Or perhaps Leika could heal him come morning.

It was morning now. Some of Eunso’s men were with them in the barn. Some of them were indoors. Eunso aside, they were all asleep. He would have liked to move for the capital as soon as possible, but with Jaelim in his current condition, it was out of the question. He thought about resting a bit longer, but it was a brief thought. He’d been awake for mere seconds before his mind slipped back to the man he’d been thinking about when sleep took him. 

Leika. Eunso had been waiting at the barn entrance, hoping to catch a glimpse of Leika. He was not sure where the sorcerer had gone after leaving them in the shed. Sunbe and Miroka had vanished as well. And now, the field was as lifeless as ever. Still no sign. 

Eunso pushed upright. He took a quick loop around the farm and found no sorcerer, no spirits. He doubted Leika would simply abandon them like this, so perhaps the sorcerer was hiding somewhere for peace. Thinking not too much of it, Eunso brought a cart of flasks for refilling at the nearby stream. And coincidentally, leaning against the wooden bridge rail of that same stream, facing the rising dawn, was Leika. Eunso grinned unconsciously and left his cart at the base of the bridge, then went to greet the sorcerer.

Not a shadow of the past night lingered on Leika. He was cleaned, changed, with his rich hair braided neatly and his body dressed in navy silk and leather trousers. Pearls adorned his ears. Rings glittered around his fingers. He spared Eunso not a glance, as composed and as distant as they had been all this time. Eunso didn’t let it bother him today. 

“Ever the soldier, aren’t you?” said Leika. “At work as dawn breaks.” 

Eunso leaned on the rail beside him. “Meditative work, nothing more.” He paused. “I thought you would be resting for longer. Last night seemed…” He scratched his head. “Exhausting.” 

“Why do you always think so little of my stamina?” 

“Do you mean to say it wasn’t tiring?” 

Leika turned to him with a flat gaze. He  _ was  _ tired. Apart from the rest of his composure, the shadows had not entirely evaporated from beneath his golden eyes. “Buying a meal is tiring when you’ve spent the past forty years in the comfort of your mistwood manor. It doesn’t mean I need someone brooding over me like a mother hen.”

Eunso sighed. “How do I show my concern without offending you then?” 

“Don’t.”

“Don’t be concerned?”

Leika nodded simply and faced the stream again. Something about that gesture softened Eunso’s heart. Something about the man gave Eunso the impression that in many ways, the old sorcerer of legend was still a child. He treated emotion and human connection with the cautious removal of someone who didn’t fully understand either. From their strange fight in the bookroom, to the request about the stag, to disparate abrasion and then openness on the ship, to last night…last night, when Jaelim pounded his heart in pain, the heart that he had glimpsed through the merging of their souls. 

Pieces were beginning to come together. And Eunso wanted to be gentle in treading the rest. 

“That’s impossible, I’m afraid,” he said. 

Leika glanced at him, then frowned. A moment passed in silence. 

“Let me show my gratitude, at least,” said Eunso. He extended a hand. 

Leika looked down at his open palm.

“What do you want?” the sorcerer said bluntly. 

Eunso glanced at Leika’s hands, folded over the rail. He gestured faintly. When the sorcerer merely kept his unimpressed frown and did not budge, Eunso slowly reached for the exposed hand, the ringed one dangling beside the old wood. Thankfully, Leika did not push him away or withdraw. He did not react either, but that was fine. 

Eunso slipped his fingers around that hand, pulled it gently forward. He cupped it between his own two hands, feeling the superficial cool of the morning air, the thrumming warmth and pulse beneath. It was such a slender hand, a flawless hand, dwarfed by his callused own. His heart hammered. Surely, Leika could feel it. Suddenly it seemed ridiculous, what he was doing. But just for a moment. Just for one moment, he wanted to connect. 

He met Leika’s expressionless gaze. He said, with all the sincerity he could muster, “You saved a man as dear to me as a brother. You risked your life to do it. And in doing it, you gave us hope again. So thank you, Leika. A hundred lifetimes over, and I could not repay you for your kindness.”

He closed his eyes and bent his head. He pressed his lips to the scarless knuckles in his hold. In their land it was a gesture of fealty, and at the moment, it was the most he could give. He was afraid he would be rebuked, that his touch would be treated as a dirty thing—but Leika was still, allowing the moment to pass. 

When Eunso looked up, their eyes locked for a long moment. Then Leika glanced down at his hand. Eunso reluctantly released it and watched as Leika folded it over the rail again. 

Gazing back over the stream, the sorcerer said, “A hundred lifetimes, hm? Then I suppose I’ll have be creative to keep our bargain fair.” 

“I think it would be impossible,” said Eunso, smiling, “but I look forward to your efforts.” 

Leika made a faint noise. It sounded like a scoff. “How is Jaelim?”

Eunso told him. They returned to the barn, where the others were beginning to rouse. After healing Jaelim’s injuries to a manageable state, the group resumed their trip toward the capital in high spirits. Only Miroka seemed grim, his usual childish ease drawn into abrasive displeasure. One day Eunso would like to speak with the boy—the spirit. One day, Eunso would like them to understand each other.

For now, returning home was their priority. 

Morning turned to noon. They took a longer route to avoid what Leika sensed to be a potential cluster of undead. By mid-afternoon, the guarded walls of the capital were within view. These walls protected not just the city; unlike Narim, the capital stones wrapped both the inner city and the surrounding township. Upon the outer plain fields there were no signs of blood or corpses. But shadows walked the ramparts, pacing as if on idle guard. Iron bells rang out as Eunso’s party rode closer. They had been seen, and the alert was spreading through the ramparts. 

Eunso commanded Muyen and Sabune to hoist the flags from among their supplies. As they approached the entry gate, the soldiers up on the wall registered their faces. Eunso heard them calling his title, alerting each other of the group’s identity. He heard, too, a strange note in their voices. The gates should have opened by now. But they stood unmoving. A cold dread sank into his bones. 

Soon Eunso stopped his horse mere steps from the sealed iron slate. The soldiers above should have addressed him by now, in deference of his rank, if nothing else. Instead they had gone quiet from their nervous muttering. He gazed up flatly at those who peered from above. 

“Have you gone blind in our absence?” Eunso called. “Do you not recognize the emblem of the Black Scales? Open these gates.”

“G-General Sen,” said a soldier. “W-we are under orders to keep the gates sealed. The capital is to be protected…” 

“We are not infected. The Highlord, I’m sure, would trust me on this.” 

The soldier glanced at someone behind him. “Still, sir, the gates must be sealed.” 

“Do you need to examine the men? Send down a doctor.”

“N-no, sir, that’s…” 

“That’s?” said Eunso.

Silence.

“This is ridiculous,” said Jaelim, angry. “Open the goddamn gates before we tell Akugal to lop your head off!” 

“Akugal is dead.” 

Eunso turned his gaze. The words came from another man, appearing to the soldier’s left. He recognized the voice, the face—it was Han Iruong, Third General of Puan, trusted warhand of Sun Senkim, who was Akugal’s eldest son. The same Senkim who had wanted Eunso dead for quite some time now. The same Senkim, it suddenly appeared, who might hold the fate of the land in his unsavory hands. 

“Dead?” echoed Eunso.

The Highlord Akugal had been aging, ill for some time. The plague had taken its mental toll on his body, and he had not been at his best when he sent Eunso on the mission. But dead, now, of all times? The situation could not be worse. 

“Lord Senkim has assumed the duty of governance,” said Iruong, “and in the interest of our kingdom, His Lordship orders all entry barred until the court enchanters have developed a cure. I’m afraid, General Sen, there is little we can do for you and your lot.” 

Eunso bit down a snarl. “Senkim, the heir? You expect me to believe that was the Highlord’s true will?” 

Iruong swept a scarred, lazy hand. “His true will is confounding the court. We do not have the luxury of understanding it while a plague rages. Lord Senkim is doing what is necessary for the survival of the kingdom, and we, the faithful, choose to follow him.”

The faithful, he said—in other words, there were those who were ‘unfaithful.’ No doubt there was a political fracture within these walls. No doubt, because Akugal had birthed three sons and a daughter, each with their own rights to the lordship. And the one he would have named on his deathbed, his ‘confounding true will’, that would almost certainly be...

A hand grasped Eunso’s sleeve. He looked down and met Jaelim’s terrified gaze. 

“We have to get inside,” said Jaelim. 

Eunso looked back up at Iruong. “We have a cure. Open the gate.” 

Murmurs slithered across the ramparts. Iruong appeared surprised. “A cure?” His gaze drifted to Leika and the spirits, lingering for the longest on the expressionless sorcerer. Iruong blinked, at last appearing nervous. But he composed himself quickly enough. “Ah. So I take it that is the Lord Rohe? Regardless, you will have to forgive me. My lord’s orders—” 

Leika lifted his hand, with a simple curl of his long fingers. The iron gate shudder and rose. The soldiers on the ramparts clamored in alarm. Soon, the path forward was clear. 

Eunso glanced at Leika. The sorcerer gave him a bored look and said, “Have you had enough of the pleasantries?” 

Despite the somber atmosphere and the talk of death, Eunso found some inescapable amusement. He smiled briefly, then rode on forward. The others followed behind him.

Moments later, within the walls, Iruong descended warily from the ramparts. Impressively, he kept his composure. But he also kept his distance from Leika. 

“Under usual circumstances, that would be considered trespass,” said Iruong. 

“What would we not give for these to be usual circumstances,” said Eunso flatly. “Alert Lord Senkim to our arrival. And let him know we will be calling court at the fifthhour.” 

Iruong lidded his dark eyes. “You propose to command his Lordship?” 

“It’s not a command. It’s a courtesy notice.” 

Iruong’s lip twitched. Eunso snapped his reins and led his group home. 

The township and the city were dense with refugees, barely a drop of warmth or humor among the crowds. Eunso’s arrival did light a spark, drawing curious chatter and waves of life. Here, the people recognized his face. They knew about his mission. His apparent health and purposeful advancement, and the mysterious trio at his side—these all helped the speculators draw their own conclusions. Voices called from among the throng. He was quiet because so much was yet uncertain. But his eyes were focused and alight, and everyone who saw this would understand that they had hope again. 

As they neared the capital, Eunso sent off his men to their families. His own home was a grant of land on the eastern township outskirts, but he had no reason to be there at the moment. He had no lover waiting, no children, no siblings. His mother had passed two years ago, and since then, his residence had been a lonely place. Most of his days were spent in his private quarters within the palatial grounds itself, and that was where he headed now, with Jaelim, Leika, and the spirits. 

Palace guards braced themselves in surprise at their appearance. The guards were under Senkim’s command now, probably. But unlike the soldiers at the gate, they stood on the same ground as Eunso, and so did not dare bar him from entering. News spread of his arrival—he watched it spread, in fact, as stray eyes widened and skittered off to report. They seemed to be Senkim’s servants. Or his brothers’ servants. Those whom Eunso knew to be loyal to him were nowhere in sight. 

Not, at least, until he reached his own yard aside the east barracks. The door was already open. His half-dozen manservants and ladies had gathered in the yard. And they had company. 

A slender woman in fine silk waited with two of her own loyal guards. Rich hair bundled in intricate knots atop her head, making her appear taller than her men. In traditional terms, she was not beautiful, but she carried herself with a striking air. That was Maeri—a noble daughter of grace. And upon spotting Eunso and Jaelim, her face collapsed with relief. 

She embraced Jaelim first, who had rushed ahead of Eunso. Eunso turned and gestured for his manservants to shut the yard gates for privacy. Maeri was thanking the heavens as he did this. Seconds after he faced her again, she released Jaelim and came to embrace Eunso. Eunso closed his eyes and held her tightly for a moment, relief overwhelming him as much as it did her. 

“You’re late,” said Maeri. 

She could be referring to any number of things. He had taken quite long to return. He had missed Akugal’s passing. He had missed Senkim’s usurpation of power. 

“I’m sorry,” said Eunso. 

They pulled apart. Jaelim had walked closer. Those brief embraces were not enough reunion for the three of them, but they had company. Maeri looked around, finally sweeping her eyes over Leika and the spirits. 

“This must be Lord Rohe,” she said politely.

Leika glanced between her and Eunso, his face expressionless. He didn’t say anything.

Maeri bowed her head regardless.

“Sun Maeri, humbled by your presence. I wish we would have met in better circumstance, but, alas, it seems we are caught between a curse and a coup.”

“A coup?” said Eunso. “Did his Lordship not pass peacefully?”

“It’s complicated,” said Maeri. She turned to Leika again. “Forgive me, my lord, but there’s much political strife I need to catch General Sen up on. I would not want to burden you with the exhaustion of it all. Perhaps Rulan can show you to the guest quarters, where you might get some rest?” 

Eunso nodded at his manservant Rulan, who stepped forward and bowed. He next turned to Leika.

“Please, make yourself at home. I’ll let you know when we make for court.” 

Leika’s expression remained as flat as ever. But, somehow, Eunso felt that he was able to read lines here and there. Something about the sorcerer seemed...displeased. Yet after a pause, Leika simply said, “Excuse us, then.”

The sorcerer and his spirits followed Rulan out of the courtyard. Eunso watched him go until Maeri tugged his sleeve. 

“You, too,” she said. “Go wash up. I’ll have a meal set. We can talk while eating.” 

So that was what they did. 

After a quick shower, Eunso and Jaelim met Maeri in the main hall, where a hot meal was laid over the polished wooden longtable. They took their seats on the plush cushions, stomachs growling, not having seen food like this since they left the luxury of Leika’s manor. For a short moment, Eunso simply bathed in the relief of being at home, with his two dearest friends alive and well. He sipped his drink and swallowed his soup, preparing himself for the next leg of the disaster that Maeri waited patiently to deliver. 

“So,” he said at last, “tell me. How complicated have things become?” 

Maeri spooned another fill of pork into Jaelim’s half-emptied bowl, and then sighed. 

“Awan is dead.” 

Eunso blinked. 

Awan—the First General. Akugal’s right hand, and apart from the Highlord himself and his progeny, Eunso’s only superior. 

“What?” said Jaelim. “How?” 

“About a week after you left,” said Maeri, “my father sent him east to seek foreign relief. They didn’t make it far. We had a survivor return several days ago, reporting that the others had been swept up by the plague. In any case, there’s no time to grieve. You see the situation we’re in.” 

Eunso dropped his spoon on the table and rubbed his temple. Awan—the only other ranked general of Puan that Eunso had respected. They had never been particularly close. But they had been comrades. They served the same kingdom, the same ideal—the wellbeing of the people. Awan was an ally. And now, Awan was gone. 

“Why?” he muttered in frustration. “I warned him—”

“I know,” said Maeri. “So did I.” 

They were talking about Akugal. In his fractured court of politics, with his three sons vying for power as his life waned, he had few men he could trust. If he was going to send Eunso out, he should have kept Awan at his side. 

“Did his Lordship die peacefully?” said Eunso.

Maeri paused. “I was not there. I hear that he did. But the doctor who tended to my father was in my brother’s pouch, so for all we know…”

“He could have been murdered,” finished Eunso. 

It made him sick. That, for the sake of power, Akugal’s sons would take advantage of their kingdom’s ravaging. Men and women and children were dying by the hundred thousands. And yet, even still, all they saw was the title of Highlord. What did they think they would have left to rule once the curse killed everyone? Skeletons? Or the vicious undead? 

The curse hadn’t breached the walls of the capital yet, that was why. The spoiled boys of the court hadn’t felt the fear of it yet. All that suffering was a distant concept. 

“He named a successor,” said Jaelim, breaking the heavy silence. 

Maeri looked up. After a moment, she nodded. 

“The court won’t accept it?” said Jaelim. 

“If I were born a man, perhaps it would have been simple,” said Maeri. “But no woman has held the Lordship before, so of course, there was room for dissent. And you know who the old men listen to. Awan was not there. Eunso wasn’t either. Everyone just assumed you were dead. And the Third General backs Senkim. Iruong—he’s been promoted to First General, by the way, pending Senkim’s inauguration.”

Eunso clenched a fist. “Like hell I’ll let that happen.” 

“Yes, but it’s been over a week, and Senkim’s swept the palace. It’s been chaos in the court, but he came out on top. He’s already smothered out my other brothers to submission. Even your voice in the court won’t have the same power it used to.”

“Then, are you just going to give it up?” said Eunso. 

Maeri snorted. “Who do you take me for? I knew I wasn’t going to win without you and Awan. But I didn’t for a single second believe you wouldn’t come back. I’ve pulled my supporters out of the fray to reserve their strength. Chunam and Raeni are playing tame. So long as you and your men have my back, Senkim won’t have it easy. But the problem right now is this curse.”

“Won’t be a problem for long,” said Jaelim. “Leika can fix it.” 

Maeri blinked. “Just like that?”

“Well, no…” 

“He was able to lift the curse from Jaelim,” said Eunso, at which Maeri quickly paled. He hurried on before she could panic over the fact that Jaelim had been cursed at all. “But it’s different from breaking the curse altogether. That’s going to require several more days, at least. Perhaps weeks.” 

“Weeks?” 

Eunso nodded grimly. Leika had revealed the details during the ride to the capital this morning.

“He says the curse was laid by a sorcerer with intent. To lift it from the land, he would need to locate the caster. There is no other alternative. Cleaning it up body by body is simply impossible with its rate of spread.”

“And how does he intend to locate this caster?” 

“By tracing the spellwork to its source,” said Eunso. “It seems like it’s possible to follow some kind of magical signature in a spell back to its caster. The more proximate the curse to its initial casting, the easier the tracing. So his plan, as I understand it, is to travel north to Pihe, where we first saw signs of the curse.”

“Alone?”

Maeri searched his face. Eunso hesitated. 

“I did mean to go with him,” he said reluctantly. “But if you need me here…” 

Maeri reached over and clasped his hand. “We’ll go together.” 

Jaelim spluttered out a mouthful of soup. “ _ What _ ?” 

“We’ll go together,” she repeated, looking at Jaelim with a grin. “My brothers will not come after me if I am headed into the curse’s nest. And as for the Lordship—the people of Puan deserve a leader who will put their lives before her own. I will help Lord Rohe break this curse.” She turned to Eunso again. “We’ll use the court today. We’ll declare it publically. The people will know. And they will know they deserve a highlord—a high _ lady _ —who is willing to protect them at any cost.” 

Eunso was quiet, searching Maeri’s eyes. Her words made sense, perhaps too much sense. But the implications—the thought of all of them riding through the infested north—it sent shivers down his spine. He had intended to go alone. But if Maeri came, so would Jaelim. Even if Leika could remove the curse from any one of them, the undead was a horde of beasts that could rip apart their bodies. 

But, what was the alternative?

He could not leave Maeri here in this state of affairs. Her brothers were ruthless. Senkim, at least, would not hesitate to kill his own blood to preserve his power. So, if Eunso stayed to play the game of politics, he was leaving Leika to travel the northlands alone. To face the enemy sorcerer alone. Not that he truly believed Leika needed Eunso’s help, but…but Sunbe’s words, Jaelim’s tears. That slender hand patiently engulfed in his, beneath his lips. 

The thought of treating Leika as nothing but a hired hand made his chest hurt. 

“Eunso?” said Maeri, frowning.

Eunso turned away. “It’s nothing.” He cleared his throat. “I would have to see if Leika is alright with this plan. He might be the one burdened by us, after all.” 

Maeri pinched his arm. Eunso hissed in pain.

“Are you calling me a burden?” she snapped. 

“No! No, I just meant…” 

Jaelim snickered. “He was totally calling you a burden. Don’t feel bad, Mae. Leika’s given  _ him  _ rap for being a burden, so he’s just sharing the sting.”

Maeri covered her mouth and laughed. “Imagine that! The Great Sen Eunso, a sorcerer’s burden! Say, is he really as awful as they say? How  _ did  _ you get him to come out here anyway?” 

Eunso smiled and told her. They wrapped up the meal on a lighter note, apart from the talk of murder and family death and political scheming. An hour before court was to be called, they dispersed to their rooms to change. Eunso donned his formal armor, with polished plates set over deep red silk, with the black scales of the kingdom dragon inked along shimmering gold. It was an appearance he reserved for particular occasions—ceremonies, appointments, and such. This was a particular occasion. This was him declaring fealty to a new highlord. A highlady. 

He sent out his men to spread word about the court at the fifthhour. He wanted all the court nobles on grounds in attendance. They would know he was alive, that he backed Maeri, and that the end of this plague would be ushered under her name. And they would know that the sorcerer they cursed, the one they spewed horrific tales about—they would know him to be their savior. 

Eunso went to fetch this sorcerer personally when it was time. The guest wing where Leika stayed was in a private part of the residence, the corridor quiet as he approached. He was fine until he reached the doors, and then as his knuckles gently rapped the wood, strange nerves struck him. Memories of greeting Leika in his bookroom, in his bedroom. Somehow, those moments felt months ago. 

“Leika?” he called softly. “It’s Eunso. Are you awake?” 

Quiet. 

He parted his lips to speak again. Then, footsteps. 

The doors slid open. 

Eunso blinked in surprise. 

Leika was awake. In fact, it looked like he had been awake for some time. He was dressed, not as he had been for travel, but richly, elegantly. Instead of tame trousers and tucked shirts, he now wore the folded navy robes of nobility. Gems adorned his earlobes, glittered across his fingers, his collar, stark against his snowy skin. His hair spilled down his back, rich and smooth and untouchable, like an invisible veil existed between those strands and the rest of the world. His golden eyes brimmed with inescapable magic. His skin had no spot of wear. His face, oh gods, his face...

Some familiar fright hammered in Eunso’s chest. He quickly dodged Leika’s gaze. “I wasn’t expecting…er, you look…” 

“Sunbe tells me your lady wishes to make a statement,” said Leika.

“Oh. You were listening?” 

“Idle curiosity,” said Leika. “I thought I would help. Well? Is this appropriate enough?” 

Eunso blinked again. 

A part of him had acclimated to Leika’s striking beauty. But framed and accented like this, it was once again overbearing. Anyone who looked at him could see that this man was not natural. And just as Eunso thought that, his heart stung a little.  _ Not natural _ . This facade of nightmarish perfection hid all the softness and vulnerability, the humanity he’d glimpsed these past days. 

And Eunso, he was...he was still afraid of it. 

Shame filled him. Resolve chased it away. He forced his gaze back to Leika’s face. He skimmed those features despite his hammering heart. Thick, soft lashes. Relaxed, gentle brows. A faint tinge of healthy pink those cheeks. Soft, moist lips.

He was trying to see that frightening beauty as human. And he succeeded. He knew he succeeded because suddenly, a wave of lust overwhelmed him. Heat rushed to his face. 

“General?” said Leika. 

“You look beautiful,” Eunso said thoughtlessly. 

It was Leika’s turn to look surprised. 

Eunso quickly turned away. “Sorry. That was too forward of me. But, yes. It’s appropriate enough. However you want to present yourself. It’s appropriate.” 

A moment passed.

Leika then stepped out into the hall. Behind him, the shadows of his spirits stirred as well. 

“We should get going, then,” said the sorcerer. 

Eunso glanced at him. Leika avoided his gaze. But there was something about his expression—something that wasn’t as perfect and unreadable as it had been a moment before. Something a little more blatantly human. Warmth filled Eunso’s chest, and he didn’t even care that he was embarrassed from his forward words. He smiled. He nodded. He led the sorcerer down the corridor. And for all the dark revelations of the day, for all the death ruining this kingdom, Eunso found himself feeling simply, innocently happy, just walking in quiet beside his guest.

**Author's Note:**

> To read the most up-to-date chapters, please check out my Wattpad account at wattpad(dot)com(slash)user(slash)acerana! And leave me a comment if you have a few seconds - it will literally make my day!


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